


Welcome to Gilmore's Hollow

by kassio



Series: Gilmore's Hollow [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gilmore Girls Setting, Baker Harry, M/M, Parent Louis Tomlinson, Single Parent Louis, Teacher Louis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 04:49:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 60,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7999174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kassio/pseuds/kassio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don't call Louis an empty-nester. Yes, his only daughter is is about to start university, but he's only 35, for God's sake. He finally gets to look forward to life as a young-ish bachelor in... the sleepy small town of Gilmore's Hollow. Okay, maybe that's not terribly exciting, but he'll get by with a little help from his friends, and plenty of pastries from Harry Styles' bakery.</p><p>(A Gilmore Girls inspired Harry/Louis AU. This is what happens when you start watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix, then get sucked into 1D/Larry hell at roughly the same time. You don't need to know anything about Gilmore Girls to read and enjoy this fic.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Episode 1: Happy Birthday, Baby

**Author's Note:**

> First things first: Huge, huge thanks to awesome beta and Britpicker [aslowmotionaccident](http://aslowmotionaccident.tumblr.com/) \- you were great fun to work with, and you made this story better on multiple levels. Thank you! 
> 
> Thanks also to [gettingaphdinlarry](http://gettingaphdinlarry.tumblr.com/) for writing chats and useful tips, [lucystarkid](http://lucystarkid.tumblr.com/) for kind words of encouragement, and [larryfanfictionideas](http://larryfanfictionideas.tumblr.com/) for helping me find a beta. 
> 
> A note about the relationships in this fic (particularly if you're concerned - or very excited - about the tagged Nick Grimshaw/Louis Tomlinson):  
> (minor spoilers follow)  
> All I'm going to say here is that I think the endgame ship is obvious from my description, there's no cheating, and this is not a deeply angsty fic. If you looove Tomlinshaw (and hate Larry???), you may be disappointed. If you still have concerns, feel free to message me [on tumblr!](http://fakedeepplantjerker.tumblr.com/)
> 
> I didn't tag this Kid Fic because I tend to feel like that especially applies to fic with small children. There is a child, but she's 18 at the start of the story. Sorry if anyone's miffed.
> 
> If you want to know who corresponds to which Gilmore Girls character, here's a little key:  
> Louis - Lorelai (obviously, right?)  
> Harry - Luke   
> Niall - Sookie  
> Zayn - Michel (I feel like this isn't obvious enough but it makes his character makes more sense if you know!)  
> Liam - to be honest, he's just Liam, although he has Gypsy's job  
> Simon Cowell - Taylor Doose
> 
> STANDARD DISCLAIMER:  
> I don't own these characters. This work is 100% fictional. Extensive creative license is used in characterization, and implies nothing about the real people whose names these characters share, or about my opinions or knowledge of the real people on whose public personas these characters are based.
> 
> Please do not repost my work on other sites. I don't consent to the use of my work in any context besides you chillin' and reading it on AO3 or whatever device you put it onto to read. Don't show my work to anyone in or associated with 1D. Not like that'll ever apply but it makes me feel better to say it!
> 
> Rebloggable Tumblr post [here](http://fakedeepplantjerker.tumblr.com/post/150228570085/welcome-to-gilmores-hollow-harrylouis-13) if you're into that.

**MAY 2015**

* * *

 

“18 years ago, right now, was the first time I met you.”

“Dad," Lola groans, throwing an arm over her eyes. “Still?”

“Always, baby. I'll be sneaking into your room at four AM on May twelfth until I'm old and grey. So I can tell you all about about how your mother squeezed my hand so hard I had bruises, and how she screamed so loud that my ears were ringing for a few minutes, and she even punched me in my unmentionables at one point—"

“You didn't tell me that part when I was six.”

"—and none of it mattered, because when you came out at four in the morning after three hours of pushing, all red and screaming and smeared with god-knows-what, you were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.” Louis strokes her hair, and Lola sighs softly, smiling a little in spite of herself.

“You're the best thing that ever happened to me, poppet.” And it's true. Because in spite of all the bullshit, in spite of cold and hungry nights, in spite of the tears, in spite of all the poo, in spite of everything that went off track when he found himself a single dad at 17 - in spite of all of that, he feels so, so lucky. He got the kindest, smartest, sweetest, loveliest daughter in the world.

And in a few weeks, she's going to graduate, and then she's going to leave him, and he's not entirely sure what he's going to do with himself.

* * *

 

“What's gotten into you, then?”

Louis, sitting with his hands wrapped loosely around a steaming mug of coffee, startles and blinks up at Harry. “Oh. What?”

“You're never this quiet,” Harry points out, quirking a curious eyebrow as he fiddles with the coffee machine.

“Oh, just thinking.” Louis props his chin on a fist. “Lola's birthday yesterday. I can't believe she's eighteen already, and it's incredibly strange to think how different it is, her life and mine. When I was in sixth form, I was about to graduate and suddenly I had this tiny baby to take care of. Got shit A-levels and my uni admission revoked, not that I had figured out how I would have managed it anyway really, with her so young. It's the same time in her life, but she's got admissions to her top choice universities already and she'll ace her A-levels and go to uni. I feel like such a failure, and so successful, at the same time.”

Harry hums thoughtfully. “You don't look like a failure to me.”

“Yeah?” Louis sips at his coffee and smiles. “I did all right, didn't I?”

He gets a quick flash of smile, that special deep-dimpled, sparkling-eyes smile, so sweet it nearly makes Louis' teeth ache, and maybe his heart, too.

Louis never stops being proud and delighted whenever he can evoke that smile, despite how long he's known Harry. Harry may not be Louis' oldest friend in Gilmore's Hollow, but certainly is one of his best. He's still not sure how it happened. He's not even sure when the years-shuttered bakery off the town square had reopened. It had happened when they lived on the other side of town, in that awful year when he had taken on a fourth job and then Lola got tonsillitis over and over again. He had been stumbling from the morning's drama lessons to the afternoon's football practice in a sad, exhausted daze when he smelled heaven, or, more precisely, sweet buns and freshly brewed coffee. The coffee and pastries had gotten him through that day and many others like it.

The two of them had gotten on fantastically from the start. It would have been terribly easy for them to start off wrong, with Louis' black mood that day, but Harry's warm smile of greeting was something beyond balm on a wound - more like a shot of morphine to a guy who had been stumbling around on a broken foot. Faced with a vision of such loveliness and genuine kindness, Louis hadn't been able to respond with anything other than cheer himself. Their brief banter that day had been rather nonsensical, but something had clicked between them.

So, a beautiful friendship was sealed with a cup of coffee and a brief, bizarre conversation. Probably no real information had been conveyed, but they'd recognised each other as kindred spirits. Or something like that.

Their conversations make a little more sense these days. Well, usually. 

Life isn't so different now to that first meeting eight years ago, really. Harry still spends his mornings baking and his days running his bakery-cafe. The goods have only gotten better over the years as his skill grew, while the décor has gotten both quirkier and lovelier. Louis still spends his days running back and forth across town, coaching youth football teams, teaching drama and P.E. classes, putting on community theatre productions, and doing vocal coaching.

This afternoon, it's off to Miss Carrie's little arts school. The place is barely more than a barn; he thinks it's a wonder that it hasn't blown over in some storm. It's not a great space but it is conveniently located near the centre of town.

Carrie sits on her folding chair with the air of a queen on a throne, yelling directions at the little girls practising ballet. She's a matronly woman with bleached blonde hair and heavy make-up, swathed in shawls rich with swirling colours. Her chubby hands are dripping with rings and bracelets that rattle softly when she lifts her cigarette to her lips. She blows smoke out the big open doorway and gives Louis a little wave as he approaches. He smiles back and leans against the doorway to wait while she finishes the ballet lesson.

The little girls stream out to their waiting parents, a few hugging Miss Carrie good-bye. She waves Louis over. “Come help me up, young man.” He offers a hand and helps pull her up. She tugs his face down by his collar so that she can plant a kiss on his cheek. He laughs, then coughs as he breathes in the cloud of mingled perfume and smoke that envelopes Miss Carrie. “Thank you, handsome,” she coos, fluttering her eyelashes.

“You never stop flirting, do you, Miss Carrie?” he chuckles.

“Not until I'm dead, love,” she says, patting his bum and laughing when he yelps. “I'll get you one day.”

Louis presses his lips together, but she doesn't miss noticing his shoulders shaking as he tamps down his laughter.

“You know,” she says, resting a hand on his arm, “The problem is that I lack the energy to pursue you. I'm too old to teach all the performing arts in this town—”

“What? Niall and I teach—”

“—It's just too much for a woman my age. When are you boys going to open your little academy that you've always talked about? When are you going to let me retire, Louis?”

“Okay, first of all, you can't seduce me into opening a business. I can't believe you're putting that on me,” Louis laughs. “You can retire whenever you want!”

“No, no, I can't abandon the young people of this town until there's a proper performing arts school,” Miss Carrie insists.

Louis sighs. “Considering my earning prospects, I don't know how we'll ever save enough to start a business. I wish I could say it'll be soon, but...” He shrugs.

Miss Carrie pouts. “Well, why don't you do one of those crowd-fund-whatsits? That's what all the kids do these days. You make a website and everyone gives you money! Just ask everyone you know to pitch in and you'll have enough money before you know it.”

“Miss Carrie, everyone I know _is_ this town. Putting up a donation box at Cowell's would probably be just as effective.”

“Oh. Well, do that then!” Miss Carrie beams.

“Yes, I'm sure it'll take me only days to collect a few pence, maybe even a couple pounds if I'm lucky.”

“You need to visualize your success. This kind of pessimism is entirely self-defeating, you know.” Miss Carrie shakes a finger at him in disapproval, bracelets rattling. “Oh, well, your kids are arriving, so we'll have to continue this another time.”

Louis makes a mental note to avoid Miss Carrie as he pastes on a big smile to greet the little year fives and sixes arriving for the drama lesson.

The truth is, Louis would give almost anything to be able to open his own arts school. It's been his dream, his and Niall's, for years. They have it all planned out: impeccably sound-proofed rooms for voice and instrument lessons, a little music shop, and a new performance space. That last item is the biggest reach, he knows. He's had his eye on a dilapidated old dance hall on the edge of town. It would need extensive renovations to make it into a theatre, but the size is right.

He _knows_ that the business would thrive. Right now, everything performing arts in Gilmore's and the surrounding villages is a hodgepodge of poor solutions. Music lessons take place in teachers' homes. Their families hate it, sometimes the neighbours hate it, and parents hate shuttling kids all over town to different houses. A music school would conveniently centralize the lessons and get all the squeaky, shrieking instruments played by novices into nice sound-proofed little rooms that _aren't_ someone's living room. A music shop would mean no more having to drive a couple towns over for new reeds and sheet music. And the theatre – oh, Louis dreams of that theatre. To be able to perform in a real theatre, however small, instead of Miss Carrie's weird little barn or the church! To have a real stage, curtains, lights, acoustics.

Louis loves living in Gilmore's. This weird little town, it's his home now, it's his family. All the people he really cares about are here. His life is good enough. He could never leave this place just to have a nicer stage. He just wishes he could have it all, right here.

Unfortunately, there's one thing he _won't_ give for his dream, and that's Lola. His bright, brilliant girl who deserves everything. He can't sacrifice an inch of her dreams for his. He’s never been good at saving money when he could be making her life better instead. In theory, she should be more financially independent once she’s at uni, and he could put more towards his own goals, but… what if she needs something? She's young and free and so much smarter than him, and she's supposed to follow her dreams and make him proud. That's been the plan since the first time he held her in his arms, counting her tiny fingers and toes and promising her the world.

His school might never happen, or at least not for a long time yet, but he accepted that a long time ago. He cheerfully throws himself into teaching these kids with only a few small twinges of regret.

After drama class, he hurries over to Niall's. If he gets there early enough, he might be able to get Niall to make him a snack.

Niall's house looks like a charming cottage from the outside, and like a well-managed bachelor pad on the inside. It's not that there are beer cans and dirty socks everywhere – Niall is naturally a much tidier guy than Louis. On top of that, he has a steady girlfriend and he teaches music lessons out of his home, so he genuinely can't afford to be slovenly. Still, the majority of the décor is sports-related, with a sprinkling of musical instruments for variety. The bright colours and worn finishes are more reminiscent of student housing than of a respectable 32-year-old's home. For all that, it's clean, comfortable, and thoroughly welcoming.

“Nialler!” he sings as he steps into the home. “Feeeeed me.”

“There's some wraps in the kitchen,” he hears Niall yell from somewhere in the house. Louis shrugs and seats himself at the breakfast bar to start eating. Niall emerges a few minutes later, bleached blond hair sticking out every-which-way. “Hey, bro,” he yells, offering his hand for a fist-bump.

Louis taps his knuckles against Niall's as he swallows his mouthful. “Awesome wraps, dude, thanks.”

“Sometimes I think you're only friends with me and Harry because we feed you.”

“Harry, yes, but you're my future business partner, that's why I keep you around.”

“Flattering,” Niall laughs.

“So you have a new student today, yeah?”

“Yeah!” Niall lights up as he bounces around the kitchen. “Another fiddler, finally. She has a few years of classical violin experience so we should be able to jump into the fun stuff really soon. We're going to have a blast.”

“It's been a while, huh? Since Sarah Mullen moved away, right?”

“Right, yeah, almost a year ago now. All the boys just want to learn guitar to impress girls.” Niall rolls his eyes.

Squinting at him, Louis asks, “Isn't that why you learned guitar?”

“Well, yeah. Worked, too, didn't it?”

“And yet, you judge them...”

“'Course I do,” he answers cheerily. “Hypocrisy ain't a crime, mate. Anyway, just because it worked doesn't mean it wasn't a dumb-arse kid move.”

Louis concedes this with a nod as he chews the last of his wrap.

The doorbell rings, and they spend the next hours in a whirl of music lessons. One kid cries, and one mum is weeks behind on payment, so it's not the best day, but Louis has had worse. Niall is a ball of sunshine and energy after his fiddler goes – Louis would even swear that Niall's Irish accent intensifies for the rest of the day. Amazingly, though, the man's almost as bright and bouncy after his youngest guitar student masters a new chord progression in the next lesson. Niall doesn't love kids the way Louis does, but his enthusiasm for music and for their learning seem to make up for that. His students love him, anyway, and it all goes well as long as they don't give him any students younger than nine or so.

Louis only stays a few minutes after lessons to chat with Niall before dragging himself home. Lola has already picked up some carry-out for them and has taken over most of the kitchen table with books and papers. She waves distractedly at him as he comes in, eyes not leaving the text in front of her. “Hey, Dad, I'll talk once I finish this chapter.”

Louis hums quietly as he pokes at the food containers on the edge of the table. His daughter has always been studious, but with A-levels, the intensity has ramped up to a level he's never seen before. Stuffing his mouth with lukewarm chow mein, Louis pulls over a blank sheet of notebook paper and writes, _If I were allowed to talk to you right now, I'd say, remember that time when you were studying so hard and I thought it was adorable and I laughed at you? And then you lectured me for fifteen minutes about the value of education and respecting your choices. I should have been keeping track but I think you have lectured me more than I've ever lectured you._

He slides the paper back across the table and drifts off to fetch himself a drink. He hears Lola giggle quietly. When he passes the table again to snag the container of fried rice, Lola has added on to this note, _You deserved it,_  but with a heart drawn on after. He chuckles and ruffles her hair, earning a swat on his hand before he settles down on the couch with his rice.

Louis sits in front of the quietly murmuring telly until Lola joins him, not too much later. “How's my little nerd?” he coos, putting an arm around her shoulder.

“Good.” She yawns. “I'm so tired of revising. But it's going fine. I'm still on schedule and everything.”

He raises his eyebrows. “You have a schedule?”

“Of course I have a _schedule,”_ she scoffs. “How else am I going to make sure I've covered everything?”

“Oh, of course. Logical.”

She pokes him hard in the side. “I can't believe you're making fun of me for this.”

“I just don't see why you're working _so_ hard,” Louis protests. “We all know you're going to smash your A-levels—”

“I'm going to smash them _because_ I'm working hard, that's the point!” she interrupts.

“I'm just saying you could watch TOWIE with me and still smash your exams, is all.”

“Your opinion is noted. How was your day?”

“Noted and discarded, that's what I'm hearing. My day was fine, yeah. Just the usual, you know. Niall's got a new fiddle student and he's quite chuffed about it. Sounded like their first lesson went well. My lessons were pretty normal. The Blackwell twins didn't even fight much, so that's a small blessing there.”

Lola smiles and leans her head on his shoulder. She even watches half of the episode and eats leftover birthday cake with him before she goes back to her revising.

* * *

 

“Oi, trespasser!”

Louis looks up, instinctively alarmed at the words. Ridiculous reaction - he’s been short-cutting across the secondary school’s grounds for years and no one’s ever been angry about it - and when he spots Zayn, he’s snickering at Louis’ startled look.

Zayn’s leaning against the wall of the building, looking as unfairly perfect as always with his stupid perfect black hair and eyes. The cigarette dangling from his fingers somehow completes the hipster-model look created by his heavy glasses and striped scarf. He smirks at Louis. “Got a light?”

Louis looks wistfully at Zayn’s cigarette. “You know Lola made me quit ages ago.”

“Yeah, but for some reason you've always got a lighter anyway. Can't let go of those juvenile delinquent roots?”

“You'd know, wouldn't you?” Louis fishes out the lighter that is indeed in his pocket and tosses it to Zayn, who catches it deftly. “So what're you teaching this week?”

Zayn lights up and takes a slow drag before tossing the lighter back. “Bit of John Donne today and tomorrow.”

“Oh, my.” Louis waggles his eyebrows. “The sexy ones?”

Zayn rolls his eyes. “Once again, you trivialize my work. My students will understand that love is as noble as any other art and a true artist can celebrate it elegantly—”

Louis nods sagely and cuts in, “I think it's funny when the kids giggle about poems about fucking, too. Good times, that. You should hand out condoms after.”

Zayn narrows his eyes. “Maybe I should have you come give a talk about the risks of unprotected sex.”

Louis just grins, standing up as he finishes his cigarette. “That was so weak, I'm not even going to say 'nice try.' Good luck with the sexy poetry. See you for pints on Friday?”

“We'll see. I know where to find you.” Zayn waves a dismissive hand. He immediately breaks his cool facade, though, when his hand darts out to grab Louis' shoulder before Louis can leave. “Hey, don't tell Lola you caught me smoking. I know I told her I was quitting.”

Louis snorts. “Are you, though?”

Zayn shrugs. “Dunno. But if I can at least keep it minimal until she leaves for uni, she won't yell at me anymore.”

“Well. How's this, I won't go out of my way to tell her,” Louis promises.

Zayn glares at him suspiciously. “That doesn't sound—”

“Gotta go bye!” Louis turns in place and runs. Well, jogs. Zayn smokes, and, more to the point, is too lazy to pursue Louis for such a minor offence. As he trots off toward the primary school’s football pitch, Louis wonders what it would take to get Zayn moving quickly. Insulting his glasses? His hair? His favourite band? Clearly, further experimentation is needed, but he soon loses track of his ideas in a whirlwind of energetic eight-year-olds.

They're an exhausting class. Half of them are manic, while the other half is divided between the lazy and the excessively distractible, and they’re all adorably terrible at football. At least it's his last class at the school today, and after this he has little else to do. Not many children want to have private lessons or practices on Friday. He doesn't really understand it: it's not like the children are hitting the clubs and pubs and partying until the wee hours. Friday ought to not be much different from any other day. Nonetheless, that's how it is. It may not be excellent for his bank account, but it does mean he can show up to pub night relatively well-rested and without having to choose between work and pleasure.

“Lads, the party can begin, we’re here!”

Louis bursts loudly through the doors of the pub. Lola trails him, hiding embarrassed laughter behind her hand. They get a few looks from the other patrons, but everyone here is enough of a regular to be familiar with Louis' antics. From the round table in the corner, though, they get cheers. Niall and Harry are already there, along with Liam, the town mechanic. All three have half-finished pints in front of them. For some reason, they're wearing matching snapbacks, though Niall is wearing a t-shirt and Harry is wearing what might be a woman's blouse.

“This is awfully rude,” Lola says, hands on her hips. “I meant to get the first round, now that I'm old enough, but you've already got beers.”

“Well, you can at least get your old man a drink, there's a love,” Louis says, smacking a kiss onto her cheek and taking a seat.

Lola sighs. “That's boring. It's your money anyway. But fine.”

“Get me one, too! I'll finish mine quick.” Niall calls. Then he wags his finger at Louis. “Bringing a girl to pub night, honestly. What's next?”

“Niall, you bring your girlfriend, like, half the time,” Harry points out.

“That's different. I get to go home with her.”

“Okay, this is quickly getting weird and gross. Change of subject,” Louis decrees.

They chat about their work weeks as they drink their beers and eat greasy fish and chips. Lola just groans when asked about her revising. Niall tackles her with a vigorous hug, and Harry is quietly encouraging.

After forty-five minutes or so have passed, Lola declares that it's time for her to go. “Nisha and I are having a movie night. I mean, we're going to study. That's what we told her mum, so don't rat me out.”

“You haven't even finished your beer,” Niall gasps. “That's alcohol abuse, you're too young for that kind of behaviour, missy.”

“You'll finish it for me.” Lola slides the glass across the table to Niall. “All right, bye, boys. Behave yourselves. Remember your curfew,” she points at Louis.

“Yes, mummy, see you later,” Louis waves.

Zayn slinks into the bar an hour or so later, suspiciously red-eyed. He nurses a single pint for ages while he and Harry have a meandering discussion. Louis mostly ignores it, but it seems to touch on twentieth century poetry, expressionist art, and whether love is real. (Harry is, of course, staunchly pro-love, while Zayn plays devil's advocate on the sceptical side.) Louis and Niall confer in whispers and agree that what's going on on the other side of the table is incredibly pretentious, but they ought to allow it. The weed slows Zayn down enough that Harry gets a chance to speak. Liam and Louis in particular are rather guilty of steam-rolling over Harry's slow, careful words, but Zayn in his stoned state has a preternatural patience.

“Oh. It's the boy band.”

The voice from behind Louis is flat with poorly-concealed disdain. Louis sighs and rolls his eyes. “Hullo, Simon,” Harry says, politely neutral.

Louis _hates_ the “boy band” thing. Simon's little joke, of course: head of the town busybodies and owner of Cowell's Market, Simon is a master of passive-aggression. He had come up with it almost as soon as the five of them had started hanging out together. Harry, Louis, Niall, Liam, and Zayn had all been in their mid-twenties, anomalously single young men in a small town full of old people, married couples, and kids. So, maybe they'd been a little excited to find each other. Maybe they had been kind of awesome at karaoke. And, okay, maybe they were a bit above-average in the looks department. He understood how the “boy band” thing had come about. He might not even mind it, except that Simon always says it with such smug contempt. It's also an awfully old joke, at that point. They're creeping up on their mid thirties at this point, and Louis thinks it's long past time to let it go.

“Carousing as usual, I see,” Simon sniffs. “Are you ill, Zayn? Your eyes...”

Zayn blinks at him owlishly. “Allergies.”

“Ah. Of course. Well. I hope you boys are planning to come to the fundraiser for the Gilmore's Hollow Historical Society tomorrow morning. 9 AM sharp, pancake breakfast, you know, so _don't_ stay out too late.” He nods stiffly at them and strolls off to harass the next table.

 _What the fuck?_ Louis mouths. Niall guffaws just as Louis expected. They wait for Simon to be out of earshot before Liam murmurs, “Can you believe him? Telling us we need to turn in early to go to the pancake breakfast for his pet project?”

“Not the boss of me, Simon,” Niall snorts.

“If they made him king, he would be a tyrant,” Zayn muses with the air of a man quoting philosophy.

“What's that from?” Liam asks.

“Oh... somewhere,” Zayn says, languidly waving his hand.

“It's so true,” sighs Harry.

As the night wears on, the lads slowly begin to drift off. Zayn, sleepy with weed, is the first to go. Liam lasts for another pint before he too departs.

They're talking football, naturally, when Louis' phone buzzes with a text message. He ignores it, but it buzzes again, and then again, so he gives in. It only takes a few seconds of looking at the screen for his face to fall. _“Bitch,”_ he hisses angrily. He sees Harry's face turn towards him. “Sorry, Haz,” he mutters.

“What's up?” Niall asks calmly.

Louis just huffs out through his nose and slides the phone over towards Niall and Harry.

“Oooh. Wow. Haz, mate,” Niall puts a hand on Harry's arm, “We know you don't approve of slurs against women, but I think you should give Louis a pass for that one.”

Harry's frowning at the tiny screen in confusion. “I don't get it. Who is this?”

“Beth – I haven't told you about Beth?” Louis is genuinely surprised.

“Mate, you don't tell anyone about her,” Niall laughs.

“Told you, it sounds like,” Harry pouts.

Niall waves a dismissive hand. “Known Louis for ages, haven't I? I think it was a lot more of a sore spot back in them early days when Lola was so little still.”

“Yeah, now I just don't really think or care about her,” Louis shrugs.

“About _what?”_ Harry looks about ready to tear his hair out.

“Beth is Lola's mum,” answers Louis.

_“Oh.”_

Harry looks back at the texts with new eyes.

 

**February 4, 2015  
** **Louis to Beth C 7:18 PM  
** _Just letting you know, there’s going to be a big celebration in Gilmore’s for the end of exams and Louise finishing school on June 20th_

**May 11, 2015  
** **Louis to Beth C 9:01 PM  
** _Didn't hear back so here's a last reminder about the party on June 20th. BTW - Louise’s bday tomorrow._

**May 15, 2015  
** **Beth C to Louis 10:06 PM  
** _Sorry cant make it!!  
_ _Won't be able to fly yet, decided to get my boobs done lol  
_ _How big do you think I should go???  
_ _(Attached picture: woman with long blonde hair, wearing large sunglasses, wearing a low-necked black shirt. The phone is held above her head, looking down her shirt.)  
_ _Oh wait I guess you wouldn't know or care hahahahaha_

****  


Harry's jaw drops. “Are you serious? Lola's mum is a woman who'd rather get plastic surgery than celebrate her daughter? Lola's mum is a woman who doesn't even properly punctuate her text messages?!”

Louis shrugs, then grabs his phone and slides it back into his pocket. “Yeah.”

Harry's gaze drifts upward and he frowns off into space. “She's, like, the anti-Lola. Personality-wise, I mean, they're both pretty.”

“As if I'm not,” Louis scoffs. “But no, yeah, they're really different. Thank god. The one benefit to raising Lola by myself is that Beth didn't have any influence.”

“Huh.” Harry takes a long drink of his beer. “Uh, why do you call Lola ‘Louise’ in that message? I’ve literally never heard you call her by her actual name.”

Louis smirks. “‘Cause it pisses Beth off that I named Lola after me.”

“God, you’re petty,” Niall snickers. “I love it.”

Harry shakes his head; he’s clearly trying to look disapproving, but a huff of a laugh forces its way past his lips. “Wow. I'd kind of assumed that Lola's mum was dead. That's why I never asked. I figured, maybe it's a sensitive subject, you know?”

Niall snorts with laughter. “You're too polite for this world, H. Beth's not dead, she's just a lousy mum.”

“She's _not_ a mum in any way that counts,” Louis snaps. “Got herself pregnant, then chucked a baby at me and fucked off to LA when I wouldn't marry her.”

“LA!” Harry exclaims.

“Got herself pregnant!” Niall cackles, sloshing some beer on himself. “You say that like you weren't even involved! Like you weren't there!”

“Oh, shut up, you know what I meant.”

“That's an arsehole thing to say, but I like you so I forgive you.” Niall giggles.

“She totally did get pregnant on purpose, though,” Louis insists. “I mean, yes, I participated, _obviously,_ but I did not consent to, to, to poking holes in condoms or whatever the fuck she did.”

“You're so sweary when you're drunk,” Niall murmurs.

Harry frowns, delicate lines creasing his brow. “How can you possibly know that?”

“She told me she was pregnant, like, so soon after. Usually when teenage girls get pregnant, they're all in denial for weeks, right, but she knew right away, and she was _sooooo_ happy when she told me.  Like, all we’d had was a one-night stand, and she was talking right away about us getting married. Actually, one of her friends came to me and told me…” Louis grimaces. “That she’d talked about how she could ‘trap’ me because I was easy and I came from a good family.”

“Wow. That’s…” Harry shakes his head. “What if she was lying to you, though? Just making drama? Teenagers do that sort of thing.”

“She seemed like she was telling the truth, but who knows.” Louis shrugs. “I do think it was true, though. I mean, the way she was talking about how I had enough money to get us a nice house and my family would get me a good job… It just, it felt like she had put a lot of thought into this plan, you know? _God_ was she furious when I said I wouldn't marry her. And she didn’t want anything to do with the baby once I made it clear that I’d only support the kid, not her too.”

Louis shakes his head and takes a gulp of his beer. He's never been yelled at with that level of vitriol, before that moment or since. It was one of the nastiest experiences of his life. The one good thing about it was that it had clarified a lot for him. If he'd had any doubts before, being spoken to like that would certainly have assured him that he didn't want to be attached to this woman for life.

Niall shakes his head. “That's just messed up. And weird.”

“Why would someone do that, though?” Harry asks.

Louis shrugs. “I still don't really get it. My parents had a lot more money than hers, and I kind of got the impression that she thought she'd end up rich with me? And she wasn't that smart, or hard-working. Maybe she figured getting a husband was easier than A-levels. Bad luck she picked me.” He laughs bitterly.

There's a long silence. Harry is chewing his lip and blinking slowly, enough beer in him at this point that he seems a bit unfocused. “Do you regret that she grew up without a mum?”

It takes Louis a moment to realize that Harry's talking about Lola now and not Beth. He narrows his eyes. “Lola might not have had a proper mum, but I gave her a family that was _happy_ where we _loved_ each other,” Louis says fiercely. “Anyone who would tell me that she would've been better off growing up in a household with two people who couldn't stand each other doesn't know the first thing about it.”

“Oh, no, Louis, that's not how I meant it, I'm sorry.” Harry slings an arm around Louis' shoulders and pulls him in. “I just wondered if you were sad. I know you did the right thing.”

Louis rests his head on Harry's shoulder. The subtly spicy cologne and Harry's curls brushing against his forehead are comforting. “Sorry. Bit of a sore spot, I guess.”

“Don't worry about it.”

“I must be a bit drunk. I just want to fall asleep on your shoulder.” Louis nuzzles in a bit. Harry giggles.

“We probably ought to get home,” Niall says. “I'm supposed to go over to Annie's tonight and she doesn't like it when I come back drunk.”

“Let's go for a walk,” Louis suggests. “Cool air. Clear our heads. Get ourselves suitable for going home.”

“You're going to have get off me, then.” Harry pokes him in the hip.

“Oh, no, the fatal flaw in my plan.” Niall stands and offers Louis a hand, hauling him up. They drift through the May evening, talking of nothing consequential. They drift along together until they drift apart. It's a peaceful way to end the evening, soothing Louis' earlier upset. By the time he gets home, Lola and Nisha are holed up in Lola's room, giggling and doing whatever teenage best friends do after midnight. Louis wishes them a good night and makes his way to bed, and falls asleep feeling strangely content.


	2. Episode 2: Those Manic-Frantic-Panicked Summer Days

* * *

**JUNE 2015**

* * *

 

June is determined to break them.

Lola's already taken one of her A-levels, and if Louis thought that she would get calmer as she started to put the exams behind her, he was mistaken. She only becomes more agitated about the remaining ones. It doesn't help that they're treated to unseasonable temperatures over 26°C, and of course they live in an old house in an old town in good old England, which means they've got no bloody air con. Lola has a tendency to get crabby in heat. Combine that with A-levels stress and what you get isn't pretty.

Louis coaches himself through a lot of cleansing breaths. Just himself, because Lola nearly ripped his throat out when he tried that on her. He also retreats to Niall's house rather a lot, or Harry's shop if it's during business hours. He has to accept that he can't do much for Lola. He can't study for her, or magically make her worry less. He does what we can: he feeds her, and does his best to be patient when she's snippy to him, and otherwise gets out of her way.

Eventually, like all things both good and bad, the exams come to an end. Louis picks her up from her last one and drives them to Harry's for celebratory sweets. “I'm glad you're still the type to celebrate with cake instead of drinks at the pub. I saw where all those boys from your class were headed.”

Lola smiles tiredly. “Well, Nisha isn't allowed to go to the pub.”

“Oh, I see, it's just because of Nisha. You're all bad girl at heart and you'd be tearing up the bars if only she weren't holding you back,” Louis teases.

“Absolutely.”

Nisha finished her exams yesterday, and by the looks of it, she has been sleeping ever since. She already has a table when they arrive at Harry's, her thick, glossy black hair pulled back into a lazy ponytail instead of falling around in her face in its usual careful styling. She's also wearing pyjamas and yawning over a steaming cup of coffee.

“Did your mum let you out of the house like that?” Louis asks, eyebrows raised. He'll let Lola out of the house in about anything that she wants as long as it won't get her arrested, personally, but Nisha's parents tend to be a tad more conservative.

“I snuck out while she thought I was napping,” Nisha shrugs.

“Clearly you _were_ napping,” Lola says. The two girls hug and quickly fall into discussing the horrors of their exams and all of their extravagant post-A-level plans. So far, the plans involve a lot of lie-ins and telly viewing. Louis is awfully proud of these kids.

Harry comes to linger by their table during a quiet minute when everyone in the shop is stocked with their teas and cakes. “Oh, Harry! You're coming to the big town celebration after exams, right? Did Dad tell you about it?”

“Yeah, of course. Next Saturday, right?”

Lola nods happily. She and Nisha immediately start discussing what they'll wear.

“I'm glad you can come,” Louis says. “All the other lads, they're coming too, I think. Liam's even closing up his garage early.”

“That's great. Yeah, how could we miss it?”

Louis beams.

They all decide to go out to dinner after six, “Although I don't know how you all will eat anything after eating half of _my_ stock,” Harry muses. They've convinced him to come out with them and delay his day-end cleaning, so he's allowed to be a little rude. Louis knows how much Harry hates to leave the dirty things lying around.

They decide to walk the mile or so to the curry place. Louis allows himself and Harry to fall behind the girls. When he thinks they're more or less out of earshot of the chattering teenagers, he says, “I feel like I should warn you about my family. They're coming to the celebration too and they can be, erm, a lot.”

“I'm sure they're not that bad.” Harry actually looks happy at the prospect. “So your parents are coming? What do you mean, a lot?”

“Well, there's literally a lot of them. My mum and her husband and the kids, yeah, they're all coming. I don't think my dad is, but just my mum's family is a lot. And it can be kind of tense because we have a weird relationship. I'm not close with them all. I barely feel like we're part of the same family anymore. I mean, none of them even have the same last name as me. Except for my dad, but fuck him very much.”

Harry's face crumples in confusion. “They don't? How's that?”

“Oh, well, it's complicated. My dad left when I was, erm, must have been about twelve. _Finally –_ their marriage was awful, I mean him up and leaving us was a bit shit but what we had before that was even more shit, so. Er, let's see, then she met Mark not that long after, and she took his name when they got married, so she was Tomlinson for a while. They wanted me to take his name, too, especially once Lottie was born and I had a Tomlinson sister, but by then I was already fifteen and it was just weird, you know, like, he wasn't my dad. I thought about doing it as kind of a middle finger to Troy, that's my actual dad, but, eh. Erm, anyway. So they had the four girls, they're all Tomlinsons, no wait, actually I'm not sure about the younger two, because Mark and my mum got divorced when them two were pretty little, and then my mum married Dan, Dan Deakin, so she's a Deakin, and the two littlest twins are, for sure. Lottie and Fizzy, they're Tommos, and I _think_ the middle twins are still, too, but I might be wrong.”

“Wait.” Harry presses his hands to his cheeks and stares at Louis. “You have six sisters?!”

“No, five. The youngest one is a boy. Ernie.”

“I can't believe you have _six_ siblings. I can't believe I didn't know this!”

“Well.” Louis looks uncomfortable. “I mostly see them on holidays. It's hard to be close to people that much younger than you unless you see them all the time, and I live too far away for that. Anyway. That's the deal. A lot of kids. They're all very excitable. My mum can be really nosy. I'll try to run interference, but it's me against eight, so, fair warning.”

“I'm sure it'll be fine. You know I like kids. Okay, I want to get this – go over all their names with me again...”

* * *

 

The celebration for the students who’ve just finished college is a bizarre concept. It's all Simon's idea, of course. He has some American cousins who visited once and were appalled that the students leaving “high school” didn't have a graduation ceremony. Everyone else in town thought the idea was stupid, but one year, enrolment in sixth form dipped, and Simon insisted that if they got a party for doing their A-levels, more students would go to college.

It didn't actually work. (Zayn did the maths and showed that the dip in enrolment was just because there were unusually few children in school overall that year. Presenting that at the town meeting had gotten him on Simon's shit list forever after.) Still, once Simon got something, it was very hard to get him to let go of it, and so the graduation celebration persisted. Attendance is as mandatory as any event of Simon’s: not technically required, but those who disappointed Simon tended to be punished for it eventually.

The morning of the celebration is everything they could hope, intermittently sunny but no longer hot. Lola is back to being her usual bouncy self; occasionally she has a crisis of panicking and believing she failed all her A-levels, but they're down to a few minutes a day. Louis has mastered the art of soothing her with tea and a shoulder rub. It's silly how much he's enjoying spoiling his little girl in her last few weeks as a full-time child-under-his-roof.

They run late, of course, in classic Austin fashion. When they finally hop into the car, at least they both look fabulous, well-dressed with perfectly-styled hair. Lola is wearing a sweet floral sundress with a ribbon around her waist, brown hair falling in loose, shiny waves around her face. Louis' hair is side-swept but with much more care than his day-to-day look, and he's wearing a blue button-up shirt that emphasizes his slenderness and brings out his eyes.

The celebration is happening right in the town square, steps away from Harry's bakery, which is where they meet Harry and Niall. Niall looks relaxed in a polo shirt and newsboy cap, while Harry looks dashing in a black trousers, half-unbuttoned pink shirt, and a black hat perched on his loose curls. They both grin and coo over how beautiful Lola looks.

“Ah, always second fiddle to my excellent child,” Louis sighs.

Harry smirks at him. “You look good, too. And I can't believe that you're early.”

“Wait, early?”

“I told Dad we needed to leave half an hour before we really did.” Lola smiles sweetly while Louis curses under his breath.

Louis' family isn't there yet, but he's getting plenty of text messages from his mother reminding him to save them seats. “As if I'd forget.” He rolls his eyes. “Okay, lads, we've just got to find eleven seats together. No problem, right?”

It's a problem.

After a thorough search, they find six seats in one row with five seats behind them, though offset by two seats. “It's still a contiguous block. It'll do,” Harry assures him.

“Don't you use your fancy Scrabble words on me, mister.” Louis runs an irritated hand through his hair. “Okay, it's fine, yeah, yeah.”

“I don't think you could even play 'contiguous' in Scrabble. It's too long,” Harry muses. He starts counting on his fingers. “Oh, if someone else played 'con' first, then you could...”

“Oi, that must be them?” Niall points.

Louis turns from where he's laying his jacket across seats to reserve them, and sees an unmistakeable horde making their way across the grass. He takes a deep breath and braces himself. “Okay, here we go. Right, I've got to go fetch them, back shortly. You two guard these seats with your lives.”

He strives for a quick but dignified pace as he makes his way over, waving them down when he gets close. “You made it, lovely, plenty of time to spare.”

“Louis, darling!” his mother coos. She frowns. “You're not even wearing a jacket today?” Her dark brown hair is smooth and impeccably groomed, and she's wearing a long blue dress. The fact that she has no grey hairs at fifty-three is testament to either a great stylist or great fortune; Louis secretly hopes for the latter. He reluctantly comes in for the hug, accepting a maternal kiss on the cheek. Dan is satisfied with a businesslike handshake, thank goodness. Lottie greets him with reserved friendliness, Fizzy with a seventeen-year-old's teenaged disinterest. Phoebe and Daisy, though teenagers themselves, are still young and sweet enough to demand hugs. Ernie and Doris, going on five, are too young to care much for him at all, and too distracted by the bustle of the event, barely managing a hello.

Greetings managed, he ushers them over to their seats. His mother greets Harry and Niall warmly – both of them get kisses on the cheek, too, and manly handshakes from Dan. His siblings exhibit little interest, except for Lottie, who immediately seats herself, pulls Harry down next to her, and asks him about what designers he's wearing. Louis didn't even realize that there was something special to discuss about Harry's clothing. He swipes his jacket up from the seats it's warming and quickly puts it down on the seat next to Harry. He sees Fizzy eyeing Harry's curls and he just knows that she'll claim the seat and start talking hair care if she beats him to the place. She wrinkles her nose and moves to sit next to Lottie instead.

“Fizzy, sit back here and help me manage the little ones,” Jay protests.

“Mum, it's fine, Pheebs and Daisy will help, right?”

Daisy narrows her eyes at Fizzy. “I'll do it for an hour with your make-up collection.”

Fizzy snaps her fingers. “Deal. You're my favourite today, Daise.”

Jay tuts quietly, but allows it. So they end up seated Niall, Louis, Harry, Lottie, and Fizzy in the front, with Jay, Dan, and the four youngest in the back. Ernie immediately starts kicking Louis's seat. Louis pinches the bridge of his nose and thinks, _Calming breaths. Cleansing breaths._

“It's weird that your mum has younger kids than you do,” Niall whispers. Louis elbows him.

Harry has somehow ended up twisted in his seat, engaging Doris in a rapid-fire conversation. Harry is the weirdest 32-year-old man in the world: he looks absolutely delighted to be talking to five-year-olds. Lottie snatches Harry's hat and plops it on top of Doris's flyaway ginger curls.

“I think they like Harry better, too,” Niall continues blithely.

Jay tries to ask Louis about work, about Lola, about their summer plans. It's a difficult conversation, as they're constantly interrupted by his siblings. Louis also may or may not be a bit stiff, may or may not be giving answers as short as possible that clearly leave Jay dissatisfied and prying for more.

When Jay gets distracted breaking up a fight between Ernie and Doris, Harry puts a hand on Louis's shoulder and leans in close. “Why are you making this so hard for her? She's just trying to talk to you,” he whispers.

Louis pulls back, affronted, to stare Harry in his frowning face. He's not sure how to react, his mind racing between _how dare you_ and _you might have a point_ and _it's none of your business, you don't understand us_ and _I don't even know how else to talk to her._ But just at that moment, Simon steps up to his pretentious podium, and all the chatter must come to a close.

The speeches are exactly as cliché as expected. The fact that they have to sit through speeches at all in order to get to the party is bad enough, but one boy even _sings._ Jesus. That's embarrassing. Not that his voice is bad, but it's a cringe-inducing breach of decorum. Adele herself could give a speech and he'd be embarrassed if she sang during it.

The whole thing is stupid, and yet there comes a point where Miss Carrie starts waxing poetic about the bright future in front of their children and Louis gets misty-eyed in spite of himself. Niall, wild genius that he is, produces an entire box of tissues from somewhere. He, Louis, and Harry all dab their eyes and blow their noses noisily, muttering about the atrocious dustiness of the venue. Lottie doesn't even notice because she's busy texting. Louis throws a used tissue at her head. Strangely, she laughs; it might just be their big bonding moment of the day.

Thank goodness, the speeches end eventually and allow them all to get to the good part: snacks, drinks, and general chatter and mingling. Harry somehow produces a selection of picnic blankets and quickly ensconces himself and Lola in a boisterous circle of Tomlinson-Deakins.

Louis' fingers itch. It's times like these that he most misses smoking. He wishes for an excuse to remove himself from the party for just a few minutes, to breathe and observe from the outside. He goes to the bathroom instead, takes ages washing his hands. When he returns, he just leans against a tree for a moment and watches from a distance.

He hates this, a bit. He hates that the family that he never seemed good enough for is here, with the baby birds who pushed him out of the nest and the mum who gave them the happy childhood that he never got to have, all worming their way into the happy life that he set up without them. They're laughing and smiling in _his_ town with _his_ best friends and _his_ daughter. Like they want to take everything that's his, like they don't already have enough.

He heaves a heavy sigh. He doesn't like it. He knows he's being unfair. He also knows he has to tolerate it because his people are happy. Harry's preening in a circle of admirers and dandling a child on his knee like some extremely stylish, inexplicably young patriarch. Niall, well, he has loads of cake, and his girlfriend has materialized from somewhere, so he's happy. Lola's animatedly talking to her two oldest aunts who are so close to her own age. Lottie's at uni in London already, so she's playing the role of the older, wiser sister, while Fizzy is in just the same position as Lola, waiting on her A-level results to finalize her choice of university.

Of all the conversations here, Lola's is the number one reason why he won't throw a fit and ruin this party. Lottie seems superficial, but she's actually terribly clever. She doesn't take life as seriously as Lola. Louis thinks some of that comes from growing up in a privileged setting and never having to truly worry, but that doesn't mean that Lola can't learn something from her. And vice-versa, of course. He does worry about his Lola going off to live in a faraway city. If she has a friend or two, family even, nearby when she gets there, surely that's a good thing. Lottie and Fizz never did anything wrong to him, really. They just came into existence at a weird time in his life. He tries not to hold that against them, these days. It's not always easy, but he tries.

  
It's time to try now. He squares his shoulders, pastes on a smile, and wades back in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title based on Gilmore Girls episode "Those Lazy-Hazy-Crazy Summer Days".


	3. Episode 3: Don’t Forget to Write

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter consists of a series of postcards. The postcards are presented as image files, front and back. If you don't wish to or can't read/view the images, the descriptions and transcriptions of the postcards follow the images. If you're reading this as an epub and can't view the images, I do recommend clicking over to the chapter on the web to see the pictures! Image and font source credit are in the chapter end notes. I'll note here as well, though, that the font I used for Louis' handwriting is based on Louis' actual writing, and was [made by yourssincerelylarry](http://yourssincerelylarry.tumblr.com/post/140743260158).

 

FRONT OF CARD: Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

BA1CK OF CARD:

July 7 th , 2015

HOLA NIALL!!

The churros con chocolate in Spain are amazing. We are eating them every day, sometimes/usually more than once. It's the best.

_ Madrid was great fun but we love the weird architecture here in Barcelona. _

MUCHOS BESOS xxxx Lou & _ Lo _

* * *

  
  


FRONT OF CARD: Arches of Medina Azahara, Cordoba, Spain

BACK OF CARD:

July 13 th , 2015

_ Hi Harry, Dad said I should write to you about “the super nerdy historical stuff I dragged him to.” The ancient Muslim architecture of Cordoba is absolutely breathtaking - _

The beaches in southern Spain were breathtaking!!! The blue water, the hot sand, the gorgeous

_ oh my god Dad if you wanted to send him a beach postcard you should have _

insolent child!!

_ STOP STEALING THE PEN DAD _

The nerd stuff has been pretty good too

_ OK, running out of room. Wish you were here! _

Louis & _ Lola! _  
  


* * *

 

 

FRONT OF CARD: Pyramid, Louvre

BACK OF CARD:

July 24 th , 2015

Dear Zayn,

Remember that time you said that art museums were lifeless temples to the soulless art selected by the establishment to prop up the feudo-capitalist regime while tricking the sheeple into thinking they were being intellectual and thinking critically? That was a load of shite but the crowds at the Louvre were annoying as fuck.

\- Louis

_ I don't condone what dad wrote here but hi!! Paris est magnifique et tres tres beau - Lola _

* * *

  
  


FRONT OF CARD: Acropolis, Greece

BACK OF CARD:

August 8th, 2015

Dear Liam,

Made it to Greece. Brilliant place! V historic, v beautiful

_ Very very HOT! But it is beautiful. Our tour guide has been brilliant. _

Miss you mate!

Louis & _ Lola _

* * *

FRONT OF CARD: Collage of Munich landmarks surrounded by a Bavarian flag border (blue-and-white diamonds) with a teddy bear dressed in traditional garb.

BACK OF CARD:

August 18th, 2015

Dear Harry,

We've had lots of lovely desserts on this trip but I couldn’t find any postcards with baked goods on them except for pretzels. 

_ Dad got yelled at by an elderly German man on a bicycle because he stepped into the bike lane without looking. In that moment I fell in love with Germany. _

He was wearing one of those little felt hats like you see on postcards!! (Not this card tho) Germans love rules but don't wear bike helmets, what's that about?

xx Louis & _ Lola _

* * *

  
  


FRONT OF CARD: Text: “Schoenes Bayern” (Beautiful Bavaria). Stereotypical Bavarian images: Edelweiss flower, mountain goat, Alpine buildings, beer, sausage. A picture of two children in Tirolean hats is circled in red pen.

BACK OF CARD:

August 19th, 2015

Dear Harry,

I said that thing about hats in the last postcard but I wasn't sure if you knew what kind of hat I was talking about !! I circled it on the front so you’ll know. 

-Louis

* * *

  
  
  


FRONT OF CARD: Hundertwasser House, Vienna

BACK OF CARD:

August 23rd, 2015

Dear Harry,

_ Check out this crazy awesome building. It made us think of you. _

I don't know why Lola insisted on so much time on these Germanic places. Don't think I'm suited to the German temperament but the beer and food is excellent.

_ It’s a much more civilised temperature here than in southern Europe. Dad's having a great time. He'll be reading Nietzsche and Goethe and yelling at pedestrians in no time. _

I'm only coming back if you promise to make us a Sachertorte!!

Xx Louis & _ Lola _

* * *

  


FRONT OF CARD: Copenhagen: image of crowd of cyclists; image of Nyhavn (buildings and boats along a canal).

BACK OF CARD:

August 27rd, 2015

Dear Niall,

_ Copenhagen is brilliant. Bikes everywhere. Did you know that Danishes really are Danish? But here they call them “Vienna bread”. _

I'm afraid to tell you about Christiania because I think you might leave us forever, but I can absolutely see you living in this hippie commune in Copenhagen. I think the free love era has ended even here, though

_ Dad is the worst at postcards, isn't he? Gross. _

MISS YOU NIALLER xxxxxxoooo Lou & _ Lo _

* * *

  
  


FRONT OF CARD: Rainbow house in Christiania, Copenhagen

BACK OF CARD:

August 30th, 2015

Dear Harry,

_ Saw this and thought of you and your rainbow bracelet that I was soooo jealous of when I was little! _

If one postcard gets put up on your fridge, it better be this one. colourS!!!

Denmark is surprisingly cool, by the way, though their traditional cuisine is a bit heavy on the fish and wholemeal.

_ The danishes are wonderful. Did you know danishes really are Danish? _

Are all of our postcards about food?

Xx Louis & _ Lola _

* * *

 

  
FRONT OF CARD: Vasa Ship Museum, Stockholm

BACK OF CARD:

September 9th, 2015

Dear Harry,

I thought Sweden would be really boring but it's oddly charming. Check out this awesome ship. Scandinavia is a bit more expensive but I dressed Lola up like a little crippled child and she makes a very effective little street beggar

_ I bought us the cheapest biscuits in the shop the other day. I'm sure you can imagine Dad's hysterics. _

We're all working on valuable life skills here

Home soon!!

xx Louis & _ Lola _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fonts:  
> Louis' handwriting is the Louis Tomlinson handwriting font by yourssincerelylarry . See this post: <http://yourssincerelylarry.tumblr.com/post/140743260158>. Thank you, [@yourssincerelylarry](http://yourssincerelylarry.tumblr.com)!  
> Lola's handwriting is “My Boyfriend's Handwriting” by [Darcy Baldwin](darcybaldwin.com), found [here](http://www.dafont.com/djb-my-boyfriends-handwriting.font). 
> 
> Image sources:  
> All images taken from Flickr were shared under a Creative Commons “modification ok” license, unless otherwise noted. 
> 
> Postcard 1 (Barcelona): https://www.flickr.com/photos/davidpalleja/16345150729 by David Palleja  
> Postcard 2 (Cordoba): https://www.flickr.com/photos/wendigo/216951634 by Flickr user wendigo  
> Postcard 3 (Louvre): https://www.flickr.com/photos/35098469@N02/7439585750/ by Flickr user Matthew Potts (mattpotts).  
> Postcard 4 (Acropolis): https://www.flickr.com/photos/andreakirkby/4793058785 by Flickr user Andrea Kirby (andreakirby).  
> Postcard 5 (Bavaria #1): http://www.papiton.de/Bilder/Detail/crazybavaria-pk-8161-03a.jpg - NOT CC licensed. My original plan was to make all my own postcards from images that explicitly allowed users to take/use/modify them, but I just couldn't top the amazing tackiness of these postcard designs with my mediocre graphic design skills.  
> Postcard 6 (Bavaria #2): http://positivelypostal.com/postcard-from-bavaria-the-country-of-beer-weisswurst-and-people-in-funny-clothes/ with a modification by me. NOT CC licensed.  
> Postcard 7 (Vienna): Image ganked from https://gotthepostcard.com/2016/06/14/postcards-from-vienna/ . Hundertwasser Haus, Vienna. NOT CC licensed.  
> Postcard 8 (Copenhagen): (#1) https://www.flickr.com/photos/judepics/14995671980/ by Flickr user Judepics . (#2) https://www.flickr.com/photos/118304891@N02/17134698446/ by Flickr user City Clock Magazine.  
> Postcard 9 (Christiania): Photo used with consent of original photographer who does not want to be linked. I'd like to make explicit here that I do not consent to reposting or commercial use of any of these edits, but especially not this one. Profiting off of Christiania seems particularly uncool given their whole philosophy and lifestyle.  
> Postcard 10 (Vasa): (#1) https://www.flickr.com/photos/pacificklaus/6072181256/ , (#2) https://www.flickr.com/photos/pacificklaus/6071641675/ - #1 and #2 both by Klaus Stiefel, Flickr user pacificklaus. (#3) https://www.flickr.com/photos/hockeytiggerrr/18943395559/ by Flickr user hockeytiggerr.
> 
> The images are hosted [here](https://fakedeepplantjerker.tumblr.com/private/150197475845/tumblr_od9ttqzii91vzv4zp). That might be a private post but I'm linking so I can fix URLs if they break.


	4. Episode 4: New and Improved

* * *

**LATE SEPTEMBER 2015**

* * *

 

“I think my hips have moulded to the shape of this hip belt,” Louis moans as he buckles the belt of his heavy pack.

“Don't whine. You're tough now. Hardened by your weary weeks on the road.” Lola nods authoritatively, encouraging.

“I'm hardened by my weary weeks on the road,” Louis parrots dutifully.

“Very good! I'll give you a treat later.” Lola beams at him. “Okay, where are we going first?”

“Uh, _home._ Obviously.”

“Weren't you listening to me on the train?!” Lola actually stamps her foot in mock-outrage. “We agreed that we'd go around town and hand out presents right away. Then we don't have to carry them home and unpack them and, let's be honest, forget them on a shelf somewhere.”

“Okay, you should have informed me of this plan before we packed, because I'm pretty sure the top third of my bag is all dirty pants and socks.”

“You're full of it. You barely even wear socks.”

“I know, that's how they've made it through the trip with so few washings. Ripe like a fine cheese, they are.”

“You're so disgusting.” She wrinkles her nose. “Okay, look, let's go to Harry's first. We can drink some proper coffee and reassess. Another third of your bag is stuff for Harry, anyway.”

“Is not.” Louis frowns. “But this plan is acceptable. Lead on, my little adventuress.”

Harry, pouring a cup of tea and wearing what appears to be a pyjama top, notices them the moment the door opens. Louis watches Harry's face split into a wide grin; then Harry's eyes flick to the huge backpacks he and Lola have on, and a somewhat appalled look fights with Harry's smile. The result is a somewhat contorted, twitchy expression, and Louis is laughing delightedly. “Oh, your _face_ , Haz. This is priceless. Oh, I've missed you, you weirdo.” In a few quick steps, Louis is across the room and wrapping his arms around Harry's middle for a tight hug.

Harry squawks in a rather undignified way. “I can't even hug you back because you've brought your big stupid backpack into my shop, which is a very civilized and genteel establishment, _you weirdo_ _.”_ His hands flutter uncertainly around Louis. One of them seems to think it's sensible to drift upward and pat Louis on the head.

“You're _both_ weirdos, the biggest weirdos,” Lola says fondly. Her bag hits the ground with a muffled thud. “Now I'm ready to get my normal-person hug!” She spreads her arms, eyes twinkling. Harry laughs and releases Louis to wrap Lola up in an embrace. He stoops down slightly so Lola can rest her head on his shoulder.

Lola is giggling as he releases her, holding her at arm's length to look her over. His eyes dart to Louis, too. “You're both so tan! But,” he rests an arm on each of their heads, “still tiny.”

“Oi.” Louis bats Harry's hand away. “Rude. At least I'm taller than her.”

Lola sticks her tongue out at him. “By one inch, jerk.”

“I tried to stunt her growth with coffee and books on her head so she wouldn't end up taller than me,” Louis stage-whispers to Harry.

“I could've been, like, six feet tall,” Lola sighs.

“Well, you should be thanking me, then. Do you know how hard it is for six-foot-tall girls to get dates?”

“Fitting on public transportation is harder, too,” Harry muses. “Wait. We're just talking rubbish instead of you telling me about your trip, and you're standing here blocking the way and cluttering up my cafe with your...” He wrinkles his nose. “Smelly dirty backpacks.”

“They're not smelly! At least, mine isn't,” Lola protests. She pulls up a chair at the nearest table and drags her bag over.

“We thought we'd stop in for a coffee and get sorted,” Louis explains, sitting across from his daughter in a delicate white chair. “I thought we should go home first, but Lola thinks we should hand out gifts before we even unpack.”

“I'm not sure I like my cafe being your staging area, but that does make sense. Otherwise you'll probably leave the gifts under a pile of laundry. And I want my present.” He makes grabby hands toward Louis' backpack. “Okay, I'll get coffee and you get sorted. _Please_ don't block the walkway with all of your...” He waves a vague hand at their bulging packs, then bustles away to get drinks and attend to his other customers.

“You really did put all your dirty pants on top? That's just super weird, dad.” Lola frowns over her coffee at Louis, who's curled over his unzipped pack. She turns her head at a sudden slapping sound – one of the other patrons has just face-palmed rather violently. _Oops._

Louis is biting his lip and pondering what he's going to do about all these pants and, yes, a few pairs of smelly socks. Then he's smacked in the face with something soft and crinkly. It turns out to be several bin liners, provided by a glaring Harry. “Do _not_ leave dirty pants strewn around my shop, you animal.”

“I wasn't going to just, like, fling them everywhere!” Louis yelps. He knows he's not in a defensible position, though; he drops the subject and starts chucking the upper layer of his pack into a garbage bag while Harry strides away, grumbling under his breath.

The gifts, at least, aren't in such disarray. Each person's items are in their own plastic bag, generally the bag from the shop where the thing was purchased. He attempted to label them, but they didn't always have a marker on hand. The dark green bag with a smudged pencilled-on name in particular is a bit of a mystery.

Harry's bag is a tote from a German bookstore called Hugendubel, because _Hugendubel_. It just sounds hilarious. “Huuuugendubel,” he whispers, prompting a storm of giggles from Lola. “Hazza! Hugendubel! _Hugendubel!"_

“What on earth are you saying?” Harry glides over to their table, holding a plate with a muffin and a scone.

“Ooooh. You have snacks in your hand. Are they for me?”

“Depends.” Harry sticks his nose in the air. “Is that bag for me?”

“It is. Now give us the goods.”

Harry sets the plate down on the table and himself on a chair. “Give us our pressie.”

The quick, childish intonation is very unlike Harry's usual drawl, and Lola giggles again. Louis might just let out a chuckle or two himself as he slides the bag over.

“What's a hugendubel?” Harry asks, pulling the bag to himself and running a finger over the letters on the side.

“Dunno what the word means, but it's a German bookstore. There's this one in Munich, right in the main square on the high street, that's absolutely enormous, like five storeys,” Lola gushes. “It was basically heaven. Even though I couldn't read most of the books.” She sighs longingly.

“I just thought the name sounded funny,” Louis shrugs.

“Don't talk with your mouth full,” Harry murmurs. He peers into the bag and starts pulling things out. He removes the items one by one, and exclaims over each one at such length that he has to break twice to serve customers. The slow pace is somewhat frustrating, but Harry's evident appreciation of everything is gratifying. There's a silky, slender scarf with swirling watercolour-like hues that they had picked up in Paris; a small umbrella chequered in blue and white diamonds like the Bavarian flag; a small notebook with a print of a Klimt painting on the front; a dense, cured Spanish sausage; and a book of pastry recipes in Danish.

Harry thanks them profusely and gives them both quick kisses on the cheek before he darts off to deliver a cake.

Louis presses his hand to his cheek where Harry kissed him, and to his horror feels a heat as if he's blushing. Luckily for him, Lola is eyeing the pile of gifts instead of her father. “I thought I was joking about half of your pack being gifts for Harry, but we really got him a lot of stuff.”

“We should make him hide it.” Louis scratches his chin. “Niall will get jealous if he thinks we got Harry more things, or better things.”

“Do you think? I reckon he'll be so delighted with the farts book that he'll forgive us anything.”

“Eh, maybe, but I wouldn't be so sure. Even our Nialler is capable of envy. Liam, too.”

“Not Zayn?” Harry asks, sounding amused as he sweeps by.

“Ah, you see, Zayn could never admit to being jealous because he could never admit to liking _anything_ that I did or theoretically could have purchased for him,” Louis answers. “I'm sure he can only be sure that it's a worthwhile thing if he picks it out himself.”

“Or maybe if we had a certificate of authenticity, like, 'purchased at the hippest and most indie store in all of Paris.'”

“I remember he said this one time,” Harry bites his lip and frowns in thought. “Something like, outside recognition destroys artistic credibility. Like, if it appeals to the masses, then it's, erm, being co-opted by the mainstream and so it can't challenge the mainstream anymore?”

Lola narrows her eyes. “That seems a bit paradoxical, like, if the mainstream is aware of anything it loses its power to be challenging? By that logic, the mainstream can't be challenged at all, right?”

“Or, only at a small scale?” Harry taps his lips.

“You guys are taking Zayn's shit too seriously,” Louis says.

“Where did you get your introspective, philosophical mind, Lola?” Harry wonders. “Not from your parents, from what I can tell.”

“Must've skipped a generation.”

“Or two or three,” Louis mutters darkly. “She might be a changeling. Okay, I guess we should be moving on. How much do we owe you, Haz?”

Harry waves this off. “You brought me pressies. Consider this a welcome home gift from me.”

Hoisting their backpacks again feels slightly more bearable now that they've been fortified with tea and snacks. They're about to walk out the door when Harry suddenly says, “Hey, have you talked to Niall?”

Louis shakes his head. “No, haven't see him yet.”

“But, like, did he call you when you were gone or anything?”

“No... Why? Is something wrong?”

“No!” Harry waves his hands. “I mean, not as far as I know. But you should talk to him. I shouldn't say any more.”

They spend another two hours roaming the town, greeting friends after their months away. Most of their other friends just get trinkets; Liam and Zayn get a bit more. Niall has the next-largest haul after Harry, but Louis considers not handing it over at all when he finds out what Niall's news is.

“You _what?!_ ”

“You were gone for so long! I panicked!” Niall exclaims.

Louis stares at him in bafflement. “I went on vacation so you proposed to your girlfriend? Mate, I am not following your logic here.”

“You _left_ me.” Niall presses a wrist to his forehead and swoons dramatically. “And I realized, I had better lock Annie down so she couldn't leave me like that. So I did it.” He grins. “She said yes. It was a beautiful proposal, let me tell you. I smashed it.”

“Okay, but.” Louis shakes his head. “You asked her because you actually want to marry her, right? Not just because you missed me? You're not going to break her heart now that I'm back?”

Niall laughs. “Nah, man, I'm maybe joking a bit.” He ducks his head bashfully and admits, “You know I really love her. I'm really excited that we're getting hitched, yeah. It's gonna be awesome. This party will be legendary.”

“Okay, okay. Then I'm happy for you, Nialler. Bring it in.” They hug, both laughing. Lola flings herself in and wraps her arm around them both, murmuring her congratulations.

“I'm still not sure we should give him presents, though,” Lola says. “Why didn't you call us, Niall? We got that special international SIM card and gave you all our number! That's what it was for!”

Niall shrugs. “More fun to tell you in person, though. Give you something to be happy about now that you're back to boring old home, too. Now give me stuff.”

When they finally make it home, they drop their slightly lightened packs to the floor of the entryway with twin thumps. “Sofa!” Lola yells. They fling themselves down with quieter thumps than their bags made and sigh in relief.

They actually just sit for several minutes, enjoying being home again after nearly three months on the road. It's possible that Louis dozes for a few minutes before he's jolted by a kick from Lola.

“Sorry,” she apologizes. “Moving around. My foot slipped.”

“Elder abuse is a serious problem,” Louis says mournfully.

“Shut it, old man.”

Louis gasps. “You're lucky I'm too tired and decrepit to do anything about that.”

“Hmm. So, telly? Or just nap?”

“These things can be combined. Got the remote?”

“Ugh.” Lola waves her arm at the side table. The remote is just out of her reach. Louis plants a foot on her shoulder and pushes her to the side. She squawks in protest, but she gets her hands on the remote, so it works out. “Now we're in business. Ah, home.”

* * *

 

The next two days are post-holiday perfection: Plenty of time on the sofa, plenty of delivered and take-away and frozen food. They wear bathrobes all day and receive guests in what Lola calls “dissolute decadence.”

“I can't believe you two aren't sick of each other,” Nisha muses as she picks pepperoni pieces off a pizza to stack into a greasy tower. “If I spent three months with only my parents... I don't even want to think about what would happen. I'd probably end up in a straitjacket.”

“That's because I'm not a normal dad. I'm a cool dad.”

“Are you seriously quoting Mean Girls?”

“It's things like this that make him a truly Cool Dad,” Lola says wisely.

“His knowledge of films that were new and cool when he was a teenager?”

Louis narrows his eyes. “Watch your tone, Nisha. That's my pizza you're eating.”

Nisha grins. “You know you basically lost your threatening-parent cred as soon as you told me to call you Louis instead of Mr. Austin, right?”

“A decision I regret every day,” Louis sighs. “These are the prices I have paid to be a Cool Dad.”

“I don't think you really had a choice. Could you ever have been a Disciplinarian Dad?”

“Maaaaybe...”

“Yeah.” Lola purses her lips and nods. “Exactly. You got lucky with me.”

Louis beams at her. “Don't I know it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title based on Gilmore Girls episode title "New and Improved Lorelai". (There's usually no correlation with the actual episode contents; I just found the title suitable.)


	5. Episode 5: Road Trip to Oxford

* * *

  **OCTOBER 2015**

* * *

 

Tragically, all good things come to an end, including post-holiday veg-out fests. The next phase of their life is packing.

Louis decided to drive Lola down. It seemed silly to put her on a train or plane, and to so severely limit what she could bring, when it's only a four-hour journey. Still, she can only bring one car load, and Louis' ancient RAV4 can't fit _that_ much.

“Lola, you can't bring four boxes of books. That's like half the space you've got. It's uni! You're going to acquire new books there. And there's a huge library, I'm sure. You're going to read _those_ books. Leave these behind and stop trying to double how much petrol I use.”

“I know I'll get new books, but I love these books! I want them with me!”

“You'll come back and visit them. Put it back.”

She tries to make off with Louis' shoes, they argue over how many sheets she needs, they fret over whether she can get her favourite brand of laundry detergent in Oxford. (Of course she can. It's from Tesco.) She panics over not having enough clothes hangers and steals some from Louis' wardrobe. Louis wonders if there's anything of his she won't try to take. They review every article of clothing she has and debate whether it's worth taking to uni. They plan their route. (Lola insists they can only build in one strategic snack stop because they need to stay on schedule. Cruel child.)

In the blink of an eye, the big day arrives, a cool Saturday morning in mid-September. It's barely past six in the morning and Louis has thrown back two cups of coffee before even leaving the house. “Why are we even leaving this early?” he whines. “You can't get into your room until noon.”

“We have to allow time for the pee break you'll need after drinking a million coffees, and time for the snack stop, and time for getting lost—”

“I've got sat nav, we're not going to get lost.”

Lola shoots him a _look._ “We're going to get lost. And then we have to allow time to park and everything.”

“Ugh. You just can't wait to leave me. I get it. After all I've done for you. Fine, fine, let's go.”

They drop by Harry's for breakfast. He doesn't actually open until seven on the weekend, generally, but he's there and baking already, and he lets them in. Bless the man, he's made a fresh pot of coffee. He fills up their travel mugs and hands them scones in brown waxed paper bags. He's very busy preparing for the morning rush, which lessens but doesn't go away entirely for the weekends, so they don't have a long dramatic farewell. He wishes Lola luck and admonishes Louis to drive safely, and then they're off.

They arrive outside of Lola's halls at 11:40. Louis is smug about being correct that they'd be early, and Lola is pleased to be early, so everyone wins. They join the queue of buzzing proud parents and excitable students and wait to check in.

The building is breathtaking from the outside. Lola's room isn't nearly as impressive once they're actually inside it.

“Seriously?” Louis stares around incredulously. “Hundreds of pounds a week gets you _this?_ It's so tiny! And plain!”

It really is small – smaller than Lola's room at home, even. There's a narrow bed, a desk, a chair, and a wardrobe, all contained in bare cream-coloured walls that have seen more than a few students, judging by the chips and scuff marks.

“It's not _hundreds_ of pounds a week. It's loads cheaper than London. Anyway, I've got a bursary. Please do not insult my beautiful kingdom,” Lola sniffs. “Look! I've got my own toilet!”

“Your own toilet. Wow. Truly a dream come true.”

 _“Dad_ ,” Lola groans. “Come on! This is where I'm going to write brilliant articles and study and become super smart! And once I have my posters up, and my books on the shelves, and my pillows, it's going to look wonderful in here. Come on, let's go get my stuff!”

He wouldn't exactly call it “wonderful” after they've hauled all the boxes up, unpacked, and slapped up some decorations. It's still a rather stereotypical, unimpressive student room. It certainly does feel much cosier, though. It feels like Lola's room. Only not as nice as Lola's real room at her real home.

“What did you expect? Hardwood floors and fancy wallpaper?”

“Absolutely I did. It's bloody _Oxford_ and you're living in a room barely better than the room we lived in when you were a baby!”

“The room with the ceiling that leaked, that smelled musty all the time?”

“Don't act like you remember it. It wasn't that bad.”

Lola won't let them break for lunch until the room is set up to her liking, so by the time they stumble into a nearby cafe to eat something, they're both half-starved. There aren't any official orientation activities for the day, but there are plenty of chores to get done, especially while Dad and his car are still on hand.

Lola manages to introduce herself to what seems like dozens of fellow freshers. By the early evening, she's bright-eyed with excitement, having already amassed a small posse and made plans for them to explore Oxford a bit and get dinner together.

“This seems to be my cue to go,” Louis says as he drapes an arm around her shoulder and surveys the little knot of manic freshers.

“Oh, shouldn't you come to dinner with us? You have a long drive,” Lola frowns.

“Lo,” Louis laughs. “Are any of the other parents coming to this dinner?”

“Not as far as I know...” She shrugs.

“Yeah, exactly. This is the part where I leave you alone to start making new friends and get set up in your new Oxford life. Don't worry about me. I'll get a snack along the way.”

Lola's mouth twists sadly. “Okay. Yeah. I guess that makes sense. Aw, _Dad_...” She flings her arms around him and buries her face in his shoulder.

“It won't be long 'til you come home again, kiddo,” Louis says quietly, swaying with her. “You're going to have such a great time, you're not even going to _want_ to come home. Go and be brilliant. And give me a ring now and then. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He squeezes her tight and says, “Love you, Lo.”

“Love you too, Dad. Drive safe, okay? Let me know when you get home. Even if it's late.”

“Okay, okay. Go have fun. Remember, no boys in your room.”

That makes her stick her tongue out at him as she turns to go. It's oddly comforting. She's still his daughter, even if she has left the nest. She's starting at one of the best unis in the entire world, and she doesn't hate him, so he's a tremendously successful dad, actually. He tells himself this as he drives, and he only has to pull over twice to cry, which is one less than he reckoned. He's the absolute picture of success and emotional stability.

* * *

 

Louis spends the time after Lola moves to Oxford sprinting around town in a whirlwind of activity. He figures that if he's never home, he can't notice that his daughter isn't there. In between his usual teaching obligations, he does endless drills in the park and ropes anyone he can into pick-up football matches; he walks Zayn's dog, even though he doesn't really like dogs; he goes to the pub with Niall and Liam; he helps little old ladies carry their groceries home; he takes up a table in Harry's shop for so long that even good-natured Harry eventually tells him to go somewhere else and stop mooching coffee refills. In short, he makes everyone sick of him, but it kind of works.

Lola texts him often, many times a day, but doesn't call him so much. She's relentlessly busy too: flitting from classes to clubs to the student newspaper. He encourages her to explore London a bit on the weekends when she can escape from campus, but the train ticket isn't cheap and there apparently is far more going on around Oxford itself than he ever would have imagined. He's not sure how the small university city is an interesting enough place for an aspiring journalist to cut her teeth, but Lola seems over the moon with happiness over it all.

Even though he knows she won't call soon, he's glued to his phone. (Screw Zayn and his barbs about separation anxiety. He doesn't understand.) He teaches a lot, though, so when a call does come through, he can't answer it because he's trying to get fourth graders to stop laughing at the kid in the donkey suit and actually learn their lines to _A Midsummer Night's Dream._

It only rings once, so he reassures himself that it can't be critical. Lola knows to call a few times if it's an emergency. It's strange that she would call mid-day like this when she knows he would be teaching, but maybe she just wanted to ramble on his voicemail. Rambling is more his thing than hers, but she can get a good rant going when the mood strikes.

After he shoos the last kid out of Miss Carrie's, he's finally free to check his phone. To his disappointment, the call is from an unknown number, not from Lola at all. He presses play on the voicemail.

_“Good afternoon, Mr. Austin. I'm calling from the law offices of Stone and Wilson. We represent your father, Troy Austin. There's a small matter that we need to discuss with you on his behalf. Please call us back at your earliest convenience. You can reach Mr. Grimshaw at...”_

Louis takes a deep breath and sets the phone down gently instead of throwing it across the room. His heart is racing. He doesn't know what the “small matter” is, but it can't be good if lawyers are involved. His first frantic thought is _he's suing me,_ which doesn't make any sense at all. It can't be that, but then what?

Most galling of all, of course, is the fact that he got a call from a _law office_ and not his fucking _father._ Troy couldn't possibly handle this himself, or give Louis a warning before lawyers were involved, no. That would be too much to ask, wouldn't it?

* * *

 

Over the next few days, he ignores several more calls from the law office. It takes about five days and eight calls for him to finally pick up. He answers curtly, but the secretary is immune to his biting tone. She chirpily tells him that she'll put him through to Mr. Grimshaw and puts him on hold.

He has to wait for a few minutes, which is absurd: why would they call him if they didn't even have time to talk to him? Eventually, though, someone picks up. “Mr. Austin, good morning. I'm glad we finally got a hold of you.” (Louis wonders, is his tone a bit mocking?) “I'm Nick Grimshaw. Listen, this really isn't a big deal. I think it's best to discuss the details in person, but honestly, I think you're going to leave our office feeling glad you came in. Our offices are in Manchester, right in the city centre. Normal business hours. Shouldn't take more than a half-hour. I'll transfer you back to Jenny so that you can figure out an appointment time. Okay? Okay. See you soon, Mr. Austin.”

It's a quick-fire and impenetrable wall of speech. Louis barely manages to get in a few protesting squeaks before he's transferred back to the secretary. It's impressive – few people can stop Louis from getting a word in edgewise. He reluctantly makes the appointment and hangs up, racking his brain for just why the name Nick Grimshaw sounded so familiar.

* * *

 

By the time he gets to the office a few days later, he's figured it out.

The secretary at the front desk shows him back to Grimshaw's office. As soon as the door opens, Louis exclaims “Grimmers!” in his most booming voice.

Grimshaw is a tall, lean-faced man with a crisp suit and dark brown hair in a tall, rather un-lawyerly quiff. There's a grimace contorting his sharp features. “Thanks for letting the whole office hear that. It's Nick, if you'd be so kind. I haven't gone by Grimmers since I was twelve. As you know.”

Louis smirks. “Of course I know. That's _why_ we called you Grimmers at camp.”

Nick rolls his eyes. “Well, we're not children anymore, so perhaps you could restrain yourself and manage to call me by my actual name.”

Louis raises his hands in surrender. “All right, all right... Nick.”

 _“Thank_ you,” Nick says primly. “Please, take a seat. This won't take long.” He strolls around his ridiculously oversized and opulent desk to sit on a leather chair that probably cost more than Louis' car. Louis takes his seat in front of the desk as well.

Nick opens a folder and starts pulling various papers out, spinning them so that Louis can read them, not that he has the time for or interest in reading pages of legal jargon if he doesn't have to. “This concerns an investment that your father made in your name. He bought several pieces of property back in 1983, when his business was taking off. One of them was purchased on your behalf. The parcels were all sold to a development company recently.” He slides over a final piece of paper and an envelope. “As you see, this is all a done deal. All you need to do is sign this, acknowledging receipt of the cheque.”

Feeling a bit dazed by the speech, Louis reaches for the envelope. It doesn't make a difference, he thinks, but he feels compelled to see just how much money this is before he does anything else. When he pulls the cheque out, his draw drops. He stares at it for what feels like ages, with a million thoughts racing through his mind.

Finally, he manages to drag his wide eyes back up to Nick's face. “Did you know how much money was in here?!”

“Of course,” Nick says calmly.

“Sixty thousand pounds. Holy _shit._ This is... Why would he even give this to me?” he asks suddenly. “He hasn't even bothered to pick up a phone and say a word to me in years. Why would he give me sixty bloody thousand pounds?”

“Well, legally, he didn't have a choice. This property belonged to you from the day he bought it. This money _is_ yours. Regardless of his personal feelings, he's not stupid enough to literally steal tens of thousands of pounds.”

“Huh. Well, fuck me.” Louis blows out a heavy breath, staring at the cheque again.

“Hm.” Nick chuckles and taps the paper that was under the envelope. “Sign, please.”

“Right, right.” Louis signs hastily, clutching the envelope with the cheque in his other. “Okay. So, that's it? Am I going to get arrested depositing a cheque this big?”

“For God's sake, no,” Nick laughs. “It's only sixty thousand pounds, it's not like it's a million.”

“Oh, _only_ sixty thousand.” Louis bristles. “Reassuring to see that you're still in touch with your upper-class roots.”

“Wow. I had thought we were doing so well at keeping this civil.”

Louis just sighs.

“Not that you deserve it after that crack, but I'm going to be nice and remind you that you'll have to pay some tax on that, so don't spend it all in one place. You're not paying me so it's not my job to figure out the details, but take this,” he passes over the folder, now refilled with all of the papers, “so you have all of the information.”

Louis huffs. “Right. Thanks.”

They both stand and shake hands, but when Louis loosens his grip to end the handshake, Nick brings his other hand up to hold Louis' in place. “Now that we're done with business...” Nick runs his eyes up and down Louis' body in the most obvious check-out that Louis has ever experienced. “I must say that you have gotten _rather_ fit over the years. We did have a bit of fun snogging behind the cabins at camp, I recall. Let me take you to dinner tomorrow.”

“Dinner?” Louis exclaims, eyebrows climbing. “Jesus, don't tell me you've been carrying a torch for me for twenty years, _Grimmers."_

“Nothing of the sort, but I might have done if I knew how you'd turn out.” Nick grins. “Come on. Go to dinner with me.”

“Absolutely not,” Louis sputters, jerking his hand out from Nick's.

“Why not?”

“I... a million reasons! I barely know you, but I can tell you're as pompous as ever, and that was one of the grosser come-ons I've ever gotten, and this is highly inappropriate because you're my father's lawyer, and I don't date because of my kid, anyway.”

“Is that all?” Nick smirks.

“What do you mean, is that all!”

“Those are terrible excuses. Your 'kid' is basically an adult, from what I recall, so I don't see how that matters. And you know your father would hate it if I shagged his son, which is probably a very good reason to do it.”

“Oh, go to hell,” Louis snaps, which they both know is an incredibly weak non-rebuttal. “You're really getting ahead of yourself to talk about shagging, anyway.”

“Hey, I'm just trying to invite you to dinner.”

“No, Nick. That's my answer. And I'm leaving now.”

“Call me!” Nick sing-songs as Louis hastily retreats.

“I won't!” Louis calls over his shoulder before he slams the door to Nick's office shut behind him. It's childish and he would be embarrassed if he weren't so outraged at Nick's behaviour, not to mention still riding high on the excitement and confusion of having sixty thousand pounds in his hand.

He rushes to his car, jumping in and locking the doors, as though someone would rob him here in the middle of the day. There's a tape running in the back of his mind that he can't shut off, a running chant of _sixtythousandpounds sixtythousandpounds sixtythousandpounds._ What he wants, more than anything, is to call Lola, but his baby girl is in class right now, he knows. Instead he does the next best thing: he drives to Harry's shop.

By the time he gets there, it's past six and Harry has already closed the shop. Louis bangs insistently on the door until Harry finally sticks his curly head out from the back room. Seeing Louis, he looks a bit confused but smiles and lopes over to open the front door. “You know, you could just call instead of making such a racket.”

Louis steps into the shop. “Sometimes you don't answer your phone, but you always hear me knocking eventually. Hey, I need to talk to you. Come to the pub with me?”

Harry pulls on his lower lip and looks around. “Yeah, all right, I am mostly finished. Give me a few minutes to finish cleaning up?”

“I'll wait,” Louis agrees, pulling a chair down from a table and plopping himself down onto it.

Harry purses his lips in disapproval, but ultimately just shakes his head and leaves the room. Louis smirks and pulls out his phone to text Lola.

 **Louis to Lola 6:18pm**  
_Call me after dinner if you have time, I have news ! x_

He plays a bit of Angry Birds to distract himself. He manages to engross himself enough, in fact, that when Harry asks from only a few feet away, “Why is your leg bouncing like that?”, Louis rears back in a startle so violent that he actually tips the chair back. The only thing more jarring than his spasm is the sudden shock of stopping when Harry grabs the back of his chair before he falls more than a few inches.

“I didn't know you could move that fast,” Louis says faintly. There's a muscled, flexed arm inches from his face, still with a bit of summer-golden glow under the tattoos, and surely no man could be blamed for feeling an impulse to close those inches between them, to lick and bite those corded muscles, and _thank you Lord_ Harry tips his chair back to safety and removes the arm before Louis can do something truly insane.

“You all right there, Louis?”

“Thanks to you, I suppose.” Louis shakes his head quickly to clear it.

Harry makes an amused noise and extends a hand to Louis. “Shall we, then? You look like you need that pint.”

Louis doesn't need the hand up, but he can't resist putting his hand in the taller man's. The walk to the pub is quiet, companionable in the crisp October air. They make small talk once they've settled at their table – Lola's first days at uni, the frankly obscene cake that James had ordered – until the beers arrive. Harry waits until Louis has taken a long first pull from his pint, then cuts to the chase. “All right, out with it. What's gotten you so worked up this time?”

“It's mad, Harry. Okay, so Troy, you know, my biological father, the one I haven't spoken to in years? Apparently he made this investment for me when I was, like, three years old, and, long story short, the property sold and I've just come into some money. Not, like, I'm-rich-now money, but I-could-do-a-lot-with-this money. It could be...” Louis blows out a long breath. “It could mean a lot for me.”

“He gave it to you? Troy?”

“No, no, still couldn't be arsed to talk to me, not that I want him to. No, his lawyers passed it on.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. Yeah, it's weird. And it's exciting and it's also fucking terrifying. I mean, imagine what I could do with this. You know how Niall and I always wanted to start our own school, and it's always been kind of an unreachable dream? I think this puts it in reach. And that's actually way way scarier than I ever thought.”

“Hey, hey.” Harry slings an arm around Louis' shoulder. All wide-eyed earnestness, he says, “You don't have to figure everything out right this second. This is amazing, Louis. You deserve a dream come true, you do. You can deal with this.”

Louis sighs and leans into Harry. “Maybe. I don't know. There's also Lola to think about. This could pay off so much of her student loans... Set her up with less debt when she graduates. It does kind of seem like my duty, as her dad, to use it for her.”

Harry is quiet for a long moment, chewing his lip and considering. Finally, he slowly muses, “I think you should talk to her about that. She's not a child anymore, and she would want a say. I think she'd want you to have your dream and your school. I really do.”

“Isn't it, I dunno, emotionally manipulative, to ask her? Of course she'll feel like she should tell me to keep the money.”

“Hmm. And it's better to not let her have a say at all?”

“Oh, damn your logic,” Louis grumbles, pulling back from Harry and drinking more of his beer. “Well, I'll think about that. But if I kept it... I've been working for other peoplefor eighteen years. Am I really cut out to run a business myself? What if it's a total failure and I burn through the money with nothing to show for it?”

Harry knocks his shoulder against Louis'. “Of course you're cut out for it. As a business owner myself, I'm sure of it.”

“How can you know?” Louis laughs at Harry's self-assured smile. “Well, that makes me wonder, what was it like for you when you decided to open the bakery? Were you scared?”

Harry tilts his head thoughtfully. “I already owned the property – you know, since my mum's shop was there. When I decided to move back to Gilmore's, it made sense for me to use the place and do what I seemed to be best at – cooking and baking, I mean. The big leap for me was just coming back to Gilmore's and leaving London... but opening the bakery was a lot more work than I had realized, I suppose. I didn't really think through how much there was to do.”

“At least I have that part, I think,” Louis smiles. “The amount of research I've done is frankly ridiculous, considering how unlikely it was that we'd ever really open our school.”

“Not so ridiculous now, though,” Harry points out. He bites his lip, then says, “You should probably call Niall. We'll have a proper piss-up and talk this over.”

“I haven't talked to Lola yet—”

“This is just talking, it's not setting anything in stone.” Harry already has his phone out, and over Louis' protests, declares, “Right, I've texted Niall. Another round?”

* * *

It's a few hours and more than a few beers later when Louis' phone finally rings. “Oh, shit. I've never been drunk around Lola. I can't talk to her like this. Niall. You talk to her,” he pleads, imploring hand on Niall's biceps.

“No way! I'm as pissed as you are, man. And I'm like her uncle. Her favourite uncle.” Harry squawks in protest. Niall shakes his head and firmly says, “No. Nope, no.”

“I'll do it,” Zayn smirks.

“Christ, no. Hazza? Help?”

“All right, give it here.” But instead of just talking there like a normal person, Harry grabs Louis' phone and practically dashes out of the pub, answering it as he goes.

Louis stares after him in bafflement. “Did Harry just steal my phone?”

“I think he did. That boy's a menace,” Niall says seriously.

“Asking Lola out, probably, now that she's out from under daddy's thumb,” Zayn puts in sagely.

“Jesus, Zayn!” Louis kicks him under the table. “Not on, that is absolutely not on.”

“That is gross, mate,” Niall giggles. “She's kind of all of our kid, it feels like. Just... ew.”

“This is why you're my favourite, Niall.” Louis knocks into him with an unsteady hug.

They continue bickering and bantering for a few more minutes until Harry returns, sliding smoothly into his seat and passing Louis' phone back to him. Louis eyes his gracefulness suspiciously – has Harry not been drinking his share or is he just preternaturally smooth when drunk? But he has more pressing concerns. “What was that all about?”

Harry waves a dismissive hand. “Don't worry about it. She'll call you back tomorrow night. Now, I think we were arguing about the best new album this year...?”

* * *

Louis wakes up on the living room couch, feeling surprisingly not-that-wretched. There's a glass of water and some paracetamol on the floor within reach. He doesn't remember which of his friends brought him home, but it must have been Niall or Harry. Zayn would set out water and painkillers, but far enough away that he'd have to get up for them. There would probably be a mocking note, or maybe just a general sense of superiority in the air. He dozes as long as he can afford while waiting for the painkillers to do their magic. Eventually he rouses to start making himself coffee, dashing off some quick texts as he waits for it to brew. He's going to need the energy: he has to teach year sevens today. They're sweet, really, much less cynical and self-conscious than the upper year students, but their childish energy takes a lot of wrangling.

 **Louis to Harry, Niall 6:40 AM**  
_Thanks to whoever got me home and left me treats, best mates ever x_

 **Louis to Harry, Niall 6:41 AM**  
_My alcohol tolerance is shot after all these years in dad mode_

 **Niall to Harry, Louis 8:15 AM**  
_looool i love that you didnt even include Zayn in the thanks_

 **Louis to Harry, Niall 9:07 AM**  
_I'm not an idiot_

When he comes home that evening, there are flowers waiting on his doorstep.

He slows as he approaches them. He feels oddly like he's sneaking up on something dangerous. He's not sure if he's ever come home to flowers – well, Lola got him flowers a handful of times in the last few years for special occasions, but this is different. These are delivered flowers, and he's quite sure that Lola isn't blowing her spending money on flowers for dear old dad.

The paper-wrapped container holds a riot of yellow and pink flowers. He's not actually sure what type some of them they are – he knows his basic flowers, but the lush round ones are a mystery to him. They're a bit garish, maybe, but beautifully arranged, with a subtle sweet smell. There's a note poking out from the middle of the bouquet. He gingerly tugs the card free of its little stand. The message is short:

_Still waiting for that call. Enjoy the flowers, gorgeous. -NG_

God help him, he blushes. He can _feel_ the heat in his face. This is awful. And Nick is awful. He's not blushing over bloody Nick, it's just been an awfully long time since anyone called him _gorgeous._ Last time must have been, oh, never and a half ago. Jesus.

He leaves the flowers on the porch.

But he goes back and brings them in twenty minutes later. No use letting flowers go to waste just because Nick Grimshaw is an obnoxious twat.

* * *

 

He's eating Chinese takeaway when Lola calls. “My baby!” he shrieks into the phone.

“Have you come completely unhinged without my calming influence?”

“'Course I have, love. But don't worry about me. How's school?”

“It's _amazing,”_ Lola gushes. “Being at Oxford is incredible, I mean, I've been so busy with my courses that I haven't seen so much yet, but just being here, there's such an energy to it, so many opportunities! The professors all seem brilliant so far, no one's too terribly boring. Living in the residence halls is mad, I saw a naked guy passed out on the floor the other night...”

Lola chatters happily about her uni adventures. Louis has to stop eating his dinner because he's smiling too hard. When Lola finally pauses for breath, he murmurs, “I'm so proud of you, kid.”

 _“Da-ad,_ don't get sappy on me, now, we promised, didn't we?”

Louis laughs and sniffles surreptitiously. “Sorry, sorry! I'm just so relieved that I didn't _completely_ screw you up.”

“Just enough to make me interesting,” Lola chirps.

“That's the spirit.”

“Soooo...”

“Ooh, I sense a smooth segue coming on.”

“About last night—”

“I'm really sorry about that,” Louis interrupts in a rush. “I'm a bad role model, et cetera, what did Harry tell you?”

“Whoa, caaaaalm down. He didn't say that much. Just that you were all at the pub, and you were quote-busy-unquote, and that something had happened, and it was big but good, and I should make you tell me about it before you make any decisions. I've been in suspense all day so tell me what's up!”

“Don't sass me with your quote marks, young lady.”

“Don't try to change the subject, old man.”

“Ouch. That hurts me, Lola.”

“Just tell me already!”

“Okay, okay, okay.” Louis explains it all to Lola, with a bit more bitching about his father than what he shared with Harry. “I just don't know what to do, Lo. My first thought was that I could finally open that arts school that Niall and I have always talked about. But you, your studies, that's so much more important, and this money could—”

“Dad, _stop,”_ Lola interrupts. “My situation is fine, you know that, we figured it all out. You're helping me and I'm taking on some debt and getting a job once I'm settled in here – it's just fair. We have a plan.”

“I don't know if you'll get less financial aid because I got this money, though,” Louis frowns.

“Well. I'll have to look into that. But we can make it work, I know it. Dad, you've given up so much so that I could follow my dreams. You deserve to follow yours, too.”

Louis swallows against the sudden lump in his throat. “Lola...”

 _“And,_ it'll be such a smashing success that you'll pay off my loans for me anyway. You see, this is an investment.”

“Did you just take a bow or something? I think I could actually hear the flourish in your voice there.”

“It was more of a regal arm wave.”

Louis laughs. “An investment, huh? You're such an expert in investing now that you've been at uni three whole weeks?”

“I am taking a class on economics,” she points out.

“Dodging the question. I've taught you well. But seriously, take some time to think about this. I'm not rushing into anything here. Niall and I have a lot to discuss. Let's look into the financial aid stuff and see what makes sense, okay?”

“Very sensible. I've taught _you_ well. Okay, I'll text you later.”

She's a good kid. She's the best kid. Louis is a weeping empty-nester and he can't even be that mad about it.

* * *

 

Two days later he gets a call from an unknown number. He lets it go to voicemail, for once, because he's in Harry's shop, and Harry has a strict no-phone-calls-in-the-bakery policy. It's inexplicable, considering how Harry is constantly on his phone when he's not working, but he stands by it. (When people talk on their phones, Harry sometimes comes over with a broom and gently ushers them out the door. Louis hates it when it happens to him but seeing it happen to other people is one of his favourite things – Harry is _adorable_ when he does it, with his serious little frowny-face on).

It turns out to be the first of many voice mails from Nick.

 _“Louis, darling. I've been waiting for your call, but it seems I must make the first move here. Well, I suppose you only had my office number, and maybe you thought that would be awkward. Now you have my personal number, so no more excuses. There's a delightful new tapas restaurant in town – shall we go there this Friday?_ ”

_“The tapas place was lovely. You missed out. And of course, I missed out on your company. It was very good, though. I'll take you back there sometime.”_

_“Hello, handsome. Did you get the flowers I sent? The ones I sent this week, I mean. They reminded me of the colour of your eyes. I couldn't resist. Have you ever been to the botanic gardens? They're not so nice now, of course, but I'll take you there in the spring. I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself. Dinner first. Call me back.”_

(The irises actually aren't anywhere close to the colour of his eyes, but they are very pretty.)

* * *

 

“Yoo-hoo!” an Irish voice calls from the front of the house.

“No! Home invaders!” Louis cries in a mock-frightened falsetto, rounding the corner and seeing Niall, who has let himself in as usual.

“There's only one of me, mate,” Niall says cheerfully. “Here, take the pizzas.”

“Yessss. Perfect.”

Hanging up his coat, Niall does a double-take at the vase of flowers in the living room. It's a bold tower of red roses this time – about as subtle as a slap in the face. “Are you frittering away your windfall on fancy flowers now?”

“Erm, no, I didn't buy those. Er, someone sent them. Come on into the kitchen, I'm starved.”

“You're shit at changing the subject. Who? You have a secret admirer now?” Niall is grinning as he follows Louis to the kitchen table.

“Yes,” Louis sighs, pulling sodas and beers from the fridge. “A very persistent one.”

He's about to say more when he suddenly realizes something: he's never actually come out to anyone in Gilmore's. Well, Lola, technically, but no one else. He hasn't kept it a secret, really – he's made comments about certain male celebrities being fit, and rebuffed every advance from a woman – but he's never made it official, either.

He narrows his eyes at Niall. Niall wiggles his eyebrows. Niall _must_ know, Louis thinks. Or at least have an inkling. He's never really made a choice before, on being out or not-out; he's just let it be, and so has everyone around him. Suddenly, there's a choice. He's either out to Niall, or he's actively concealing his sexuality. From his best friend, who won't judge or care, he's sure. For no reason. Okay, it's a no-brainer.

“Hey, you know I'm gay, right?”

Niall tilts his head quickly with a thoughtful expression. “Figured you were bi, on account of having knocked up a girl and all.”

“Close enough.” Louis laughs. “I mean, not really, but yeah. So, the guy who sent the flowers, he's kind of my dad's lawyer, actually. And a childhood friend Sort of.” Louis grimaces and waves a hand dismissively, “We knew each other at summer camp. Anyway. He's the one who gave me that cheque from my dad's investment and ever since he's been calling me and sending flowers.”

“That was like three weeks ago! Not good at taking rejection, eh? Seems a bit creepy.”

“Er, well.” Louis wrinkles his nose. “I mean, I turned him down at that meeting, but since then I've just been ignoring his calls.”

“The cold shoulder, not the most honourable tactic, but it tends to work eventually. But are you ignoring him because you don't think he'll accept the rejection, or because you don't want to reject him?”

Louis gasps, clapping a hand to his chest. “What an outrageous accusation!”

“I'd accuse you of going camp on me now that you're properly out, but that was a classic Louis move.”

“I don't know if I'm _properly_ out. I haven't decided yet. I don't want to be The Town Gay. People trying to set me up with their one gay nephew, having to do a pride parade that's just me with Sarah and Christina...”

“People'll get over it fast, I reckon.”

“Yeah. You're probably right. But, just... don't go tell everyone, okay? I'll do it on my own time.”

“Fair enough.” Niall knocks his beer bottle against Louis'. “Righto, let's get down to business! So, you said you'd figured out the money thing...”

“Yeah, yeah.” Louis brightens. “Lola got it all figured out. I think I'll just hire her as my accountant if journalism doesn't pan out. Anyway, a good chunk goes to taxes, and then I'm going to set some aside for her – she'll get less financial aid next year because of this, so she figured out a minimum that I’ll set aside for her. Anyway, it leaves me with forty thousand pounds.”

“Forty...” Niall has put his glasses on and is flipping through the ridiculous binder full of ideas and figures that they've assembled over the years. “That'll do for a down payment on the old dance hall, and what I can chip in will get us started on renovations.”

Louis nods. “And we can get a loan for more – using the hall as collateral, or my house, or even just folding the repair costs into the mortgage... I don't know if we can swing that but it's not impossible.”

“Hmm. First priority has to be the music practice rooms and the performance space. The shop can be a disaster for a while as long as it's not a health and safety risk...”

Louis puts his hand on Niall's arm. “Hey. We're really going to do this, aren't we?”

  
Niall beams. “Lou, we're really doing this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title based on Gilmore Girls episode title "Road Trip to Harvard". (There's usually no correlation with the actual episode contents; I just found the title suitable.)


	6. Episode 6: Deal with the Devil

* * *

  **NOVEMBER 2015**

* * *

 

On November 1st, Nick rings him, and Louis finally answers.

“Hey – _hey,_ I'm not talking to your voicemail!”

“Oops, hit accept by accident. Sorry, you can call back and get the voicemail. You seem to have grown very fond of it.”

“Don't you dare, Louis,” Nick purrs. “So when are we going to dinner? Tuesday is good for me.”

“Actually, I just picked up because I need a recommendation for a lawyer. I'm starting a small business.”

“Oh, _really._ Well, my firm's not necessarily the right pick for that, but I can recommend someone, I think. We can discuss your needs at dinner and I can give you a few names.”

“We can just discuss it now.”

“No, no, darling, I wouldn't dream of it. This kind of thing must be done in a genteel conversation with fine food and wine, it's really the only way. So, how is Tuesday for you?”

Louis takes a few deep breaths. He should say no and find his own damn lawyer. He's not sure he even likes Nick. The problem is, it has been a _long_ damn time since a fit bloke wooed him. Even though Grimshaw is a prick, it is very nice to be wooed, to feel wanted. So instead of saying “leave me alone” like he probably should, he says, “I'm free after six.”

“Wonderful. I'll pick you up at 6:30. Text me your address.”

“I'll just meet you there.”

“Nope. I'm taking you out and doing it right. Plus, my car is so much nicer than yours.” Louis scoffs and splutters ineffectual protests. Nick simply talks over them. “Text me your address, seriously, or I'm going to call you every five minutes until you do. Toodles!”

Louis waits to send the message just to see what will happen. The phone really does ring five minutes later. He ignores the call, then sends a text.

 **Louis to Nick, 3:27 PM**  
_Wait, why would you even ask for my address? p sure these flowers didn't find their own way here_

 **Nick to Louis, 3:28 PM**  
_Excellent deduction, Sherlock. Maybe I just wanted to get you texting me_

 **Louis to Nick, 3:34 PM**  
_We're not teenagers, call me if you've got something to say_  
_Im ignoring you now_

 **Nick to Louis, 3:40 PM**  
_Dress nice. Slinky LBD, fuck-me pumps, that kind of thing._

Louis groans. This is _such_ a bad idea.

* * *

“Remember the guy who's been sending me flowers?”

They're walking through the town square, dead leaves skittering around their feet in the chill breeze. The air smells sharp and bites coldly at their faces. “Sure,” Niall answers.

“Wellll, I might have agreed to go to dinner with him. But I'm asking for lawyer recommendations! We're going to need one for starting the business.”

“Uh-huh. And that's why you're going to dinner with him, instead of just talking about this over the phone or in his office.”

“Shut up, Niall.” Louis sighs. They push their way into Harry's shop. “Oh blessed heat. Coffee and pastries for cold and weary travellers!”

Harry shakes his head, but comes over to their table with mugs and a coffee pot anyway. “How are my two favourite small businessmen today?”

Louis narrows his eyes. “You calling me short, Harold?”

Harry grins his cheesiest, fakest grin and doesn't answer.

Louis harrumphs and crosses his arms. Niall answers for him. “After this, we're going to meet with an estate agent about the property. That place is so old and run down, I can't imagine they won't take an offer. And Louis—”

Louis kicks Niall under the table and interrupts. “I'm working on finding us a lawyer to help us with actually forming the company. But that should be fairly easy. Getting the property is the biggest sticking point, probably.”

Niall looks at Louis suspiciously, but lets the interruption slide. He continues, “I mean, it's not officially for sale, so there's all this weirdness of getting in touch with the owner and making an offer. But that place is an eyesore. Why would they want to keep it when they're not doing anything with it?”

Another customer comes in, so Harry rushes off to deal with them. “What would we even do if we don't get that place?” Louis frets, fidgeting with his mug.

“No fuckin' clue,” Niall admits. “We wouldn't have too much trouble finding a place to use as a school and music shop, but for the performance space so you can teach drama and put on plays too – the dance hall is really the only option. Unless we do a hostile takeover of a church, or have a new place built.”

“Yeah.” Louis rests his chin on his hand. “And a church is no good, the stage situation is all wrong for theatre, even if the acoustics are nice.”

“Heyyy.” Louis startles as Harry's big hand claps down on his shoulder. Harry plops down into a chair and slides his hand down Louis' arm, giving it a squeeze. “Don't panic yet. It'll work out.”

Louis tells himself that what he's feeling are hunger pangs, not butterflies in his stomach from Harry's strong, reassuring touch. “You brought us snacks!”

Harry rolls his eyes. “It's kind of what I do.”

“What, I don't get a hug and pep talk too?” Niall smirks.

“Erm. That was for both of you. Get Louis to share. I need to...” Harry waves vaguely at the back of the house and scurries off.

Niall laughs softly and leans in close to whisper to Louis, “Maybe flowers-guy isn't the one you should be having dinner with.”

“His name's Nick, and what are you talking about?”

Niall raises his eyebrows and nods significantly at Harry.

Louis elbows his friend in the side and hisses, “You're mad! That's... you're not even making sense.”

“Idiot. Okay, subject dropped if you're going to be like that, but think about it.”

Louis takes a bite of his cinnamon roll rather more aggressively than he needs to. Of all the ridiculous things to say. Even if... but Harry's straight, isn’t he? He kind of does flirt with everybody, but it never seems very intentional; he’s just naturally charming and sweet. He's also definitely had girlfriends; Louis can't recall ever seeing him together with a woman, sure, but he's heard the rumours of girlfriends past, and never heard anything about boyfriends.

Plus, Harry is one of his best friends in Gilmore's. He would be crazy to mess up that kind of friendship. Even if it didn't offend Harry, it'd make things weird. So. No. Not even worth considering.

(He's pretty sure that if he starts considering, he'll never be able to stop.)

He can practically sense Harry's curious stare – it's not normal for a silence to stretch on this long between Louis and Niall. “Come on, we should probably head to the estate agent's,” Louis says finally. Niall rolls his eyes and wraps his scone in a napkin to go.

* * *

“Zayn, I need you to come over.”

Louis can _feel_ the irritation down the phone line. Wait, it's a mobile, no line. Not important. “Why?”

“Because you're the vainest man I know and I have a date and I need to look good.”

“Ooooh.” He doesn't need to feel it this time – he can hear the shit-eating grin on Zayn's face. “You are going to owe me, Lou, you're going to owe me so much. Do you even have clothes for a date?”

“Ermm. I have that suit that I got for the funeral when Father James died.”

“Decade-old funeral suit that you bought when you were totally broke. So you need to borrow something. Good thing we're about the same size, although I don't know if your massive arse will fit into my trousers.”

“Dick.”

Zayn ignores him. “When do you need to be ready by?”

“He's picking me up at 6:30.”

There are a few seconds of silence from Zayn's end as he processes that little bomb. Louis holds his breath. Finally, Zayn grumbles, “6:30? You fucker, you couldn't give me a little more warning? That leaves us hardly any time at all! Okay, okay, I'll be there in fifteen.” He hangs up without waiting for an answer.

Letting the “he” slide without comment is an acceptable outcome, Louis thinks. Zayn _is_ a master of playing it cool. He suddenly realizes that he's going to have to be more thoughtful about it when he comes out to Liam. Liam might cry. Or just hug him a lot. It definitely has to be face-to-face; Liam won't be able to handle not being able to bro-hug it out.

Louis styles his hair while he waits for Zayn. Usually, his hair isn't very styled, and ends up tousled and side-swept by the end of the day. His first thought is to style it into something of a subdued quiff, but then he remembers Nick's hair and decides that anything approaching matching hairstyles is a no-go. He would look rather sharp, but it's not worth that risk. He decides to stick with side-swept, but with more intention (and product) to keep it neat and deliberate-looking.

The first thing Zayn says when he arrives is, “Really? You're wearing your hair like that? I was thinking more...” He makes a gesture back over his scalp to indicate smoothing hair back from his face.

“Nah. I'm going with this.”

Louis sounds firm, so Zayn just shrugs. His left hand carries a garment bag and a smaller bag, which he throws on the sofa and starts opening. “I brought two suits,” he says, holding them up. “The maroon I think would really suit you—”

“A maroon suit? Jesus, Zayn, why do you even own that? The grey will do just fine, thank you.”

Zayn rolls his eyes. “I knew you'd make the boring choice. Well, I tried.” Under his breath, he mutters, “I can't believe that _I'm_ the straight one here.” Returning to a normal volume, he continues, “Okay, let's go for the blue shirt, it'll match your eyes. Black tie or silver? Oh, you're boring, so black. You have black dress shoes, right?”

“Yeah, they're over by the door there.”

“Please tell me you're going to wear socks.”

“I hate socks.”

“Don't be disgusting, Louis.”

 _“Fine,_ Mum. Ugh.”

“Pants without holes in them?”

“I'm not sleeping with him on the first date!”

Zayn laughs. “Are you doing the thing where you _do_ wear ratty pants to keep yourself from sleeping with your date? Because that always backfires.”

“None of your business,” Louis says primly. He actually hadn't thought about that, but maybe it's a good idea.

In the end, he keeps his same pants on – he can't forget his mum telling him to always wear decent pants in case he ended up in hospital. He's always thought that was weird, but she had worked as a nurse so maybe she really did have an opinion on patients' underwear.

He also ends up refusing the tie. “It's a date, not a business deal.” Then there's a whole debate over how buttoned-up his shirt should be. Zayn undoes enough buttons that Louis' tattoo can peak out, but Louis decides that's too seductive and does one back up.

Louis shoos Zayn out at 6:15 with thanks concealed under insults. Zayn threatens bodily harm if Louis injures his suit. Standard.

Nick is right on time, rolling up at 6:30 in a gleaming Jaguar. He's wearing a bright red suit with a black shirt. Louis thinks he frankly looks rather ridiculous, though not necessarily bad. Nick seems to think well of what Louis is wearing, based on the overt once-over that Louis gets.

The date is... strange. Louis is profoundly uncomfortable. He's never been taken out, never been picked up like this. Hasn't really been on a date since secondary school – he managed a couple one-night stands and furtive flings over the years, so he's at least _been_ with a man before, but those were all very brief, very unofficial. He's never actually had a proper date with a man.

Fortunately, it's low stakes, since he doesn't much like Nick to start. Unfortunately, Nick manages to be rather charming. He keeps the lechery low. They manage to reminisce about summer camp, exchange humorous workplace anecdotes, and debate music favourites. Their discussion of snobbery and high-end cuisine is biting, but in a fun way. Louis loves to talk and tease, and Nick keeps up with him. It's actually not bad.

It's not-bad enough that Louis manages to forget his discomfort for minutes at a time. The whole high-end milieu is discomfiting. Of course he's ridden in fancy cars and eaten at fine establishments before – but not in the last eighteen years. On the rare occasions when he's seen Jay and the girls, it was usually at their home. It all takes him back to the turbulent years of his childhood. He's never regretted leaving this world. The top-notch crab bisque isn't worth all of the bullshit that surrounds it.

Despite the fact that he's reluctantly having fun, he's had enough of the ponciness of the restaurant by the time they try to offer dessert. Louis flatly refuses to even look at a menu. While the waiter scurries off to fetch their bill, Nick leans forward, frowning. “What was that about? I _know_ you want dessert. I saw you eyeing the profiteroles at the next table over.”

“This has all been very nice,” Louis says, waving his hands vaguely, “but I cannot deal with this snobby-as-fuck restaurant anymore. I'm going to break out in hives and that is not cute. And, erm, I'm quite full. Really. So, let's just go.”

Nick honestly looks crushed for a moment before he smooths his expression. “Right, of course. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to...” He trails off, taking the bill that the waiter hands him. Louis sips the last of his wine and tries not to feel guilty about not even fighting to pay half.

The drive is quiet and awkward. Louis realizes that Nick's gotten the wrong idea – feels rejected, clearly, when Louis just meant to reject the posh restaurant situation. They've gone several miles when Louis suddenly yells, “Ice cream!”

Nick physically recoils. “What?”

“Sorry,” Louis frets. “Erm, I meant, er, we could go get ice cream? On the way home.”

“Are you always that loud?” Nick smiles slowly.

Louis blinks. That was definitely innuendo. Well, Nick has recovered quickly. Louis decides to just ignore that. “Do you want ice cream?”

“Where can we possibly get ice cream? It's after nine and we're in the middle of nowhere.”

“It's not the middle of nowhere, there's towns all along here. Hmm... Oh! This turn, this one, take it!”

“Where on earth?” But Nick obediently turns the wheel.

“Okay, okay. Left here, yeah, right at the light... yes! Still open!”

Nick stares. “Louis, that's a Tesco.”

“Yes. Tesco has ice cream. And it's here and it's open. Come on!”

Tesco turns out be a bad idea because Nick suddenly realizes that he needs dog food, and they argue over whether it's appropriate to buy non-date items while on a date. Louis' position is absolutely not, until he sees the great deal they're running on the toothpaste he likes. The quick trip in for a bit of ice cream turns into an expedition in which Louis learns which brand of razors Nick prefers and Nick learns what brands of toilet paper Louis absolutely won't stand for. It's incredibly stupid and weirdly fun. A half-hour later, they emerge with several bags each, which do include a pot of Ben and Jerry's and two plastic spoons.

“Where are we going to eat this?” Nick asks slowly.

Louis plops himself down on the kerb and grabs the ice cream, grinning cheekily up at Nick.

Nick is aghast. “This is an Armani suit! You can't possibly expect me to sit on the pavement in front of Tesco.”

Louis shrugs. “Do whatever you want, but the ice cream's down here.”

Nick takes several deep breaths. Then he sits, reluctance clear in the tense lines of his body, and grabs a spoon. “I can't believe we're doing this instead of having a civilized dessert in the lovely restaurant we were at before.”

“I probably saved you like thirty quid,” Louis points out.

“Which I will spend on dry-cleaning this suit,” Nick sighs. “Give me the ice cream.”

Halfway through the tub, Nick excuses himself to go to the bathroom. Once he's out of earshot, Louis whips out his phone and calls Lola.

“Dad! How was the date?”

“Still going,” Louis admits.

“Really! I thought you'd have thrown wine in his face hours ago!”

“We're eating ice cream in the Tesco car park now.”

“That's... weird. Was that your idea? Oh, of course it was. I don't think you're very good at dates.”

“No, probably not. I should go, he'll be back from the loo any moment.”

“Just remember, if you sleep with him, you're sleeping with everyone else he's ever slept with too.”

“That'll probably catch me up to where a man my age ought to be! _Smashing.”_

Lola just laughs.

“Okay, bye, Lo. Love you.”

Louis doesn't let Nick kiss him good night, but when Nick texts him five minutes later to ask for another date, Louis says yes.

* * *

 

On Thursday, Louis lets Nick drive down on his lunch break and take him out, and they kiss good-bye. It tastes like ham sandwiches.

That high doesn't last long. In the afternoon, the estate agent informs them that the woman who owns the dance hall doesn't want to sell.

 **Louis to Niall, Liam, Harry, Zayn, 4:22 PM**  
_Mariel doesn't want to sell the property. War council at mine. 5:30._

 **Zayn to Niall, Liam, Harry, Louis, 4:24 PM**  
_Will there be beer?_

 **Louis to Niall, Liam, Harry, Zayn, 4:25 PM**  
_Arsehole, you're a business partner, you shouldn't need an incentive to show up_

 **Liam to Niall, Liam, Harry, Louis, 4:30 PM**  
_I need incentives and u know I cant get there til 6_

 **Louis to Niall, Liam, Harry, Zayn, 4:33 PM**  
_Ok, 6, yes I have beer_

 **Harry to Niall, Liam, Zayn, Louis, 4:40 PM**  
_I'll bring some stale day-olds_

 **Louis to Niall, Liam, Harry, Zayn, 4:42 PM**  
_luv u haz_

 **Niall to Zayn, Liam, Harry, Louis, 4:51 PM**  
_gayyyyyyyyy_

 **Niall to Zayn, Liam, Harry, Louis, 4:51 PM**  
_...too far nialler, too far_

 **Niall to Zayn, Liam, Harry, Louis, 4:52 PM**  
_i'll bring pizza_

* * *

The table is littered with empty beer bottles. Harry spreads his hands, resting his fingertips on the table. “I think there's only one choice. You've got to make a deal with the devil.”

“Nooooo,” Zayn and Louis wail. Niall just sighs and rubs his face. “There's got to be another way,” Louis protests.

“Face it, lads. It's the only way,” Liam says calmly. “He hates the dance hall being in such a bad state. He'll twist some arms. He probably has some dirt on Mariel that he can use to make it happen.”

“But at what cost?” Zayn groans.

“Only way to find out is to ask,” Harry shrugs.

“Will you come with us, Harold?” Louis begs, pulling his best puppy-dog face, the one he got Lola to teach him when she was six. “You know how to talk to him. Help, please.”

“You did suggest it, so it's kind of your fault that we have to talk to him,” Niall puts in cheerfully. “That means you have to help!”

“That's shit logic, but okay.”

“Tomorrow morning? Pam can hold down the bakery for a little bit by herself, yeah?” Louis asks hopefully.

“I hate this. Fine,” Harry groans.

* * *

Zayn, Niall, Louis, and Harry descend on Cowell's Market at 7:30 the next morning. They manage to herd Simon back into his office for Louis to frantically make their case.

Simon sits back in his chair, stroking his chin, when Louis finishes. He makes them wait for it, and oh, how it grates, putting all this power into Simon's hands. “It's a worthwhile project, boys,” he says at last, patronizing as ever. “I'd love to help you out, and I do think I could convince Mariel to reconsider. But...”

“We know there's a 'but', Simon, out with it,” Zayn snaps.

Simon twirls a considering finger in the air. “That statue of Ronald Gilmore, illustrious founder of our town, that I've been trying to have installed in the town square for years.”

“The one with your face on it?” Niall asks.

“It's not my face, it's Ronald Gilmore's. Based on an old painting in the town hall, everyone knows that. Harry—” Simon points suddenly, accusingly, “As a shop-owner on the town square, Harry has managed to block this project for years.”

Harry's clearly struggling not to smile. He scrunches his nose and defends himself. “You make it sound like I'm blocking you single-handedly. I'm just one vote.”

“One vote is all I need. And, you know, being able to successfully get this done, I think it will give me the authority I need to convince Mariel. Don't you?”

Louis holds his breath as they all turn to look pleadingly at Harry. It's a lot to ask. He leans in and whispers, “I just wanted you here for moral support. I didn't think he'd try to extort _you.”_

Harry shrugs, smiling gently at Louis. “I did.” Smile twisting into something less sweet and less sincere, he continues, “Yeah, Simon, you can have your stupid statue. _If_ Mariel agrees to sell.”

“Honouring town history is never stupid, Mr. Styles,” Simon says primly. “All right. I'll call you after I've spoken to Mariel. Now please leave my office, I have important matters to attend to.”

* * *

Everyone quickly parts ways outside of Cowell's Market, rushing not to be late to work, but after the good-byes Louis grabs Harry's left elbow and holds him back. “Hey, wait a sec.” They're standing so close that he has to tilt his head up a little to meet Harry's clear green eyes. “Thank you,” he says, as if he can somehow convey his gratitude with sufficiently intense eye contact. “You didn't have to do that. I really didn't mean to put you on the spot like that. But I really, really appreciate it. If we can get that building...”

“It's really okay, Lou.” Harry brings his right arm across his body to rest his hand on Louis', which is still gripping Harry's arm. “I know how much it means to you. The statue'll be horrible, but imagine the things we can do to it. Dress it up, put weird hats on it, throw cake at it. Maybe you've done me a favour.” He smiles. His thumb rubs back and forth across Louis' hand, and it's like a jolt of electricity through Louis' body.

It doesn't feel like that when Nick touches him, Louis thinks, and that's such a strange thought to have out of the blue that he startles and pulls his hand back. It's a little awkward, so he goes in for the hug, throwing his arms around Harry so vigorously that he hears a little “oof” from the other man. “Thanks, thank you, so much, seriously. Okay, gotta get to class. See you later!”

* * *

Louis has another date with Nick on Saturday. Nick had pushed for Friday, but Louis had demurred; he didn't want to seem too easy. He also wasn't quite sure what Nick's relentless pursuit of him would mean, relationship-wise. He might be a thrill-of-the-chase kind of guy who would lose interest if Louis were too easy to get. Or, he might be extremely clingy. Either way, a bit of distance seemed like an appropriate response.

He also _really_ didn't want to be the guy who gets into a relationship and suddenly has no time for his friends. So: a lad's night on Friday, food, beer, and movies with Niall and Liam. Niall hosts, and his girlfriend Annie even cooks for them. She might be an actual saint. They talk about their business a little, but it feels fragile, like they might jinx their chances of getting the building if they get ahead of themselves. Mostly they keep it light.

There's football in the park early on Saturday, and stupid chores, and phoning Lola. Before he knows it, the day's gone and Nick is picking him up again. They do dinner and a movie – a less fancy restaurant, so Louis doesn't panic and run away. It's pretty successful. Nick invites Louis back to his after with the promise of cocktails from his excellent home bar. This time, Louis accepts.

* * *

Waking up in Nick's place is weird. Really, really weird.

And nice. Surprisingly, strangely nice.

The mattress is the perfect level of plush. There isn't even one awkward, poking spring to try to avoid. The sheets are soft not because they've been beaten down from years of washing, but because they actually started out like that.

There's also the fact that he's waking cuddled up to a warm body, and it's not a child kicking him in the gut, shrieking from nightmares, or sweaty with fever. He's rather comfortable, lying in a very nice bed with an objectively rather fit fellow who fancies him.

He decides he can deal with this, and nuzzles into the soft pillows to doze a bit longer.

When he wakes up again, he's alone in the bed, but he smells sausage. There's a robe lying next to him in the place where Nick was before. Shrugging it on, he pads out of the bedroom into the kitchen.

“I was starting to wonder if I'd have to wake you,” Nick says as he pokes at a pan with a spatula.

“Smell of breakfast did the trick. Is there coffee?”

“This is a civilized household. Coffee pot's just there to your left. Left you a mug.”

“Ah, bless you.” He pours a generous cup of coffee and takes a happy sip as he situates himself on a stool to watch Nick cook. “I could get used to this.”

“My sausage gets you to come, but this sausage gets you to stay,” Nick smirks as he dishes up the meat.

Louis groans. “That's _terrible._ And you look far too pleased with yourself.”

Nick shrugs but doesn't deny it, grinning. He slides a plate to Louis: toast, breakfast sausage, fried egg. There's a plate with jams, marmalade, and butter. “Where's the caviar and pâté? Where's the champagne?” Louis pouts. “I thought you were rich. I'm not sure I would have spent the night if I knew I wasn't getting the good stuff this morning.”

“It takes at least two more dates to get into my secret caviar stash.”

“Ahh, I see. Caviar must be earned. Makes sense.”

They eat, and Louis gets convinced to go on a walk with Nick and his dogs. Then there's a discussion of appropriate legal counsel for a fledgling small business – Louis having completely forgotten the pretext of agreeing to the first date in his discomfort at the weird posh restaurant they'd gone to. Soon it's late enough, and the drive back long enough, that it really makes sense to get a light lunch on the way. Louis mentally notes that he'd better start driving himself or else he might just never escape from Nick’s. He does manage to extract himself after lunch by explaining how terribly much he has to get done that day, though.

He really does have a lot to do, but he also needs some space. They've had three dates, five meals, and a sleepover in under a week, and it was quite enjoyable, but it was also a _lot._ He's only been back in the dating game for a few days and he thinks he already has a boyfriend. Not that they've had that talk, but Nick seems more intense about this than if he were trying for something casual. Well. He's still waiting and seeing how it goes.

He texts Niall the names of the lawyers, deputizing him to do his own research and make some introductory appointments. Of course, they're still waiting to see if Simon really comes through on the Mariel situation, but they both agree that it's wise to get their ducks in a row as if the deal will go through.

He plays some footie, does some laundry, and spends much of the evening on the phone with Lola. He eats a lot of cereal and chews loudly into the phone and she yells at him. It's almost like having her home. “You’re so gross, dad, ugh! Oh, oh, but you know what’s really gross? There’s this guy on my floor who never wears shoes and his feet are _green_ _,_ like, how does that even happen, so I rang Nisha to tell her about it since she’s studying medicine and…”

* * *

The next week is dull and normal. It rains relentlessly and the last few leaves are battered into submission. Louis learns on Friday that it's a tremendous pain getting up early and getting back to Gilmore's from Nick's place in time for morning classes. The breakfast that Nick quickly  cooks is probably healthier than scrounging for cereal or wolfing down buttery sugary pastries. The time crunch leaves him without even the time to pop into Harry's for a coffee, though, and he feels oddly disappointed. It doesn't make a lot of sense. Nick's coffee was excellent and he sometimes barely exchanges two sentences with Harry on busy mornings anyway. To miss Harry is something that just doesn't make sense, so he resolutely pushes the feeling away and dashes from his car to the school.

Lola comes home to visit that weekend, and it just might put Louis into proud parent heaven. He drags her all over the town, bragging to everyone about how brilliant she is. “You can’t tell everyone I’m doing great, I don't even have my marks for the term yet!” she protests, feebly snatching at the copies of the school paper that Louis is passing out.

“I'm never bringing more than one of these home ever again. Why didn't I question it when you asked me to bring loads?”

“That is troubling. I thought you were supposed to be learning critical thinking skills and deductive reasoning and all that.” Harry shakes his head disapprovingly.

“I should probably demand my money back,” Louis agrees. “University is clearly wasted on her.”

She leaves him too soon. He wishes he could afford the hundred pound train fare instead of having to put her on the cheap bus that takes three times as long. If they're not able to buy the dance hall, at least he'll be able spend the money on fine train fares for his girl, he thinks.

* * *

Perhaps he jinxed himself with that thought, because on Monday, the estate agent calls and tells him that she's been able to negotiate with Mariel after all. When he tells Lola, she shrieks into the phone so loudly that his ear rings for a few minutes after.

From there, it's a whirlwind. He's running to the bank on his lunch hour, he's begging the estate agent to meet them after hours because Niall's held up at work, he's on the phone with half a dozen people every day. It's all unbelievably complicated: mortgages, contracts, appraisals, lawyers, builders. He spends half the nights of the next two weeks getting pissed at the pub with whatever subset of his friends will have him. The other half, he falls asleep on the couch before 8 PM while eating sad bowlsof cereal, and wakes up 2 AM crusted in Frosties and smelling of sour milk.

* * *

 **Louis to Harry, 8:08 AM**  
_If I weren't at a meeting at the bank I'd be annoying u at the bakery right now x_

 **Harry to Louis, 10:14 AM**  
_Point???_

 **Louis to Harry, 10:20 AM**  
_I was annoying u remotely instead, obviously, keep up curly_

 **Harry to Louis, 10:25 AM**  
_You need to chill_

 **Louis to Harry, 10:29 AM**  
_I need to eat, I missed breakfast and I'm starving to death, send pastries to the school music room plzzzz I'm literally  moments from death_

 **Harry to Louis, 10:31 AM**  
_You know where to find my pastries! Or did you forget where my shop is? I haven’t seen you in days_

 **Louis to Harry, 10:32 AM**  
_Sorryyyyy_

 **Louis to Harry, 10:58 AM**  
_OMG Diane just showed up and said she went to get a snack in her free period and she brought me a muffin thank uuu xx_

 **Lola to Louis, 1:18 PM**  
_Harry says I need to come home and probably sedate you. Are you OK??_

 **Louis to Lola 2:03 PM**  
_Lies and slander. I'm great. Just busy!! Did you know how complicated it is buying property and starting a business?! Why did you not warn me, child_

 **Lola to Louis, 2:29 PM**  
_I'm not a business major, on purpose, you know_

 **Louis to Lola 2:03 PM**  
_Well WHAT GOOD ARE YOU THEN. Send me videos of kittens and I'll forgive you x_

* * *

On a Friday near the end of November, he's done with work by 1:30. Nick's pouting tremendously over not having seen Louis in over a week, and even that had only been dinner and “a conjugal visit” before Louis kicked him out. (“I'm pretty sure that's super not what a conjugal visit is, Nick.”) Louis gives in and agrees to come over to Nick's and spend the rest of the day, and the night.

They're lazily making out on the couch when Nick's phone rings. He pulls back and grimaces. “Shit. I'm sorry, I have to take this, I'm already skiving off work as it is...”

“Nick! You're the one who insisted on me coming over early!”

“Sorry, sorry, it'll be quick...”

It's not quick. After a few minutes, Nick starts pacing and eventually drifts toward his home office. Louis waits until he's out of sight, then lunges for the files in his bag and dials. “Paul! Hey, do you have a moment to talk about the repair estimates?...”

They alternate kisses, snacks, and their Important Business Person phone calls. They take the dogs out for a walk and even manage to be on their phones for part of _that._

“This is ridiculous,” Louis muses, almost dropping his phone as Pig pulls eagerly on her leash, “but I do feel rather important all of a sudden.”

“Careful, darling, this is where workaholism starts,” Nick says, wagging one of his long fingers.

“Takes one to know one. But starting a business is just all-consuming, for anyone, I think. I don't know if I would've done it when Lola was little even if I had had the money.”

“I'm sure you could have managed it.” Nick smiles fondly. “You probably would have completely lost the plot, though. I wonder if you would have ripped all your hair out, or maybe it would have tangled and turned into a giant dreadlock?”

“What are you on about?”

“You mess with it a lot when you're stressed, you're always running your hands through it. Sometimes you look like quite a madman. It's cute.”

“That doesn't sound very becoming for a Very Important Businessman.” Louis pouts.

Nick pokes him in the cheek and laughs, “You're running a small town performing arts thing, not a multinational corporation. You don't need that much gravitas. Which is lucky, because you don't have a lot.”

“No need to be condescending,” Louis huffs. Nick ruffles his hair.

  
Nick can be awfully annoying: loud, needy, a bit of a know-it-all, almost always flirtier than necessary, a teasing in a way that can tend toward cruel sometimes. But he's fun, funny, witty. A good cook. Also, rich, and decent in the sack. So. It works, Louis thinks. It's enough for now.


	7. Episode 7: Last Week Fights, This Week Christmas Lights

* * *

  **DECEMBER 2015**

* * *

 

December feels unrelentingly grey. It's grey in the morning and it’s grey in the afternoon. Everything feels dulled and slow; everything drags. The children are sluggish at football practice, complaining of the cold and gloom. The whining strains Louis' nerves, which are already thinned by his frustration with the dance hall purchase. It's all so complicated; he thought it would all be done in days, but it takes weeks. The business plans all feel frozen, in limbo. Everything is lined up but nothing can proceed.

At least there are the evenings, when twinkling Christmas lights and flickering candles push back against the thick curtains of clouds. Then there’s the Christmas show to prepare for. The show itself is a bit kitschy, a bit trying-too-hard, but the children adore it. They love the songs, they love the costumes, they love the cookies that their mums send along in big packages to share with the group. He's been working with most of them for years, and has modulated the shouting and shrieking into a smooth, sweet choir. They're rowdy – all the energy that they're holding back during P.E. and sports practice seems to burst forth in the warm drama room. Despite how exhausting they are, though, they're the brightest spot in the first weeks of December.

He camps out in Harry’s bakery when he can, which isn’t nearly often enough. His time is dominated by work and seemingly endless meetings about the property, and Nick constantly tries to claim whatever’s left. Harry's is the absolute best place in winter, though. It's not so hot that it's uncomfortable in winter clothes, but it's nicely heated. The light is golden and warm; Harry lights candles sometimes in the evening, even though Simon scolds him for the fire risk. Harry's love for flowers - the striped wallpaper with its little roses, Harry's bright silk shirts and floral headscarves, the real thing or silk facsimiles on the counter – should make the bakery feel like some grandmother's parlour, but somehow it's a sweet reminder that spring will come.

Well, it still does feel a little bit like a grandmother's parlour. “But a nice grandma, like, the kind you like to spend time with, drinking tea and watching her crochet or whatever. Not the mean or boring kind.”

Harry laughs quietly. “So I'm a nana, but I'm the good sort. Okay.”

They're sharing a pot of tea. It's quiet in the shop, getting toward closing; some people stop in quickly for bread or cakes to take home for the evening, but no one is staying.

“I like nanas.”

Harry dimples prettily. His curls are especially glossy today, Louis notices, and his scarf is a light rose-pink that matches the wallpaper and brings out the warm, rich tones in his dark hair. “Well, how goes the rehearsals? First show next week, right?”

“Yeah. I think we'll be ready, yeah. And Lola will be back next week.” Louis brightens. “I'm so glad she has so much time for Christmas hols. It'll be good to have her back. I need her to calm me down,” Louis chuckles. “This winter show really makes me miss having a little kid.”

“You really are an empty nester.” Harry smiles and shakes his head, curls bobbing.

“No, but the holidays are so much more fun with kids. Don't you think? They get so excited. It's all magic for them. There's a level of Christmas spirit you just don't get unless there are little ones there. Thank god I'm not a woman and I won't get myself knocked up out of Christmas time baby fever.”

Harry's laugh bursts out of him, loud and shocked and delighted. “Louis has baby fever! No!”

“Oh, no, I can't believe I said that.” He smacks himself in the face. “I'm not even drunk, there's no excuse.”

“This is incredible!” Harry crows. “I would have thought you'd be excited to be all wild and free now, you know. I mean, you're still young. I'd never have thought you'd want more kids.”

Louis shrugs and looks away, something uncomfortable twisting in his gut. “I don't know. I like kids. I always wanted a lot. It just...” He rubs one arm with his other hand. “I don't know. It's not like... erm... but someday, maybe. It'd be nice to have a few more. If I get a chance. Yeah.”

Harry rests his chin in one hand and looks pensive. “I know what you mean,” he says, and it sounds sad.

Louis frowns at him, puzzled. “What do _you_ mean?”

“Oh. Just. I always wanted kids, too, but it hasn't worked out for me either. At least you've got the one.”

“Yeah. I am lucky to have had Lola, honestly. She's always been enough. I never wanted her to feel like she wasn't enough... But, hey.” He kicks Harry's ankle lightly under the table. “We shouldn't mope. We have time. Lucky we're blokes, yeah? No time limit for us.”

“That's kind of rude.” Harry scrunches his nose disapprovingly, but then he smiles, so Louis figures he hasn't gone too wrong.

“Just facts, Haz, you can't argue with biology. Oh, pot's empty, get us some more tea, would you?”

He feels sort of warm and fuzzy as they laze about for the next half hour. It must be because of the tea and the scones and the candles.

It's not wrong, he tells himself, to beg off his usual nightly call with Nick by saying that he needs to talk to Lola that night. Then he watches TV until, oops, it's a bit late to call Lola, isn't it? Best to just turn in. He's tired and needs his rest anyway.

* * *

Respite from the gloom soon arrives. It’s only metaphorical - the weather stays as it always is and the days continue to shorten as they always do - but Lola comes home. He hasn't seen his baby in _an entire month!_ She tries to insist that she needs to do tedious things like laundry and unpacking her suitcase, but it's much more fun to drag her all over town. Harry decided to try making croissants and she has to taste those. And of course they have to have an early dinner at the pub with the lads. And she must be dragged to see the dance hall, even though she's seen it before and it looks just the same and Louis and Niall don't even own it yet. “But look at the _dreams_ _,”_ Louis coos while Lola rolls her eyes and clutches her umbrella. And then she has to see the holiday show, naturally. It's the last performance before the winter holidays.

She's so tired by the end of the day that she falls asleep on the couch. He curls up in the armchair just to be near to her.

He wakes up in the morning to her saying, “You're such a weirdo. Here, I've put some tea on the side table here.”

He hears the soft clunk of the mug and groans. “Everything hurts.”

“That's because you slept in a chair like an idiot.”

The following days are lovely, for the most part, but one thing she says while they're strolling and chatting jolts him.

“A couple weeks ago, I went into London to see Lottie and Fizzy,” she mentions. “Lottie has such a cool flat!”

She chatters away about her aunts while Louis listens, fascinated and a bit confused. “So, you've become quite friendly with them, then?”

“Yeah, we exchanged numbers when they came here in the summer, you know, and since they're not so far from me, it's cool to get to see them. Get to see where they live and their universities, you know? We're all doing such different things. It's interesting to compare. I don't think I really appreciated before how smart Lottie is, because she's always been so into the fashion and make-up stuff, but she's actually very clever.”

Louis is a bit offended on his younger sister's behalf, which gets him thinking how strange it is that Lola knows his family so little. It's his fault, of course, and more than a little guilt-inducing that Lola apparently wants to have these relationships and is forming them without him, now that she's free to do so.

It nags at him enough that the next day, when Lola is out with Nisha, Louis picks up the phone and dials a number that he almost never calls.

“Hi, Mum. It's Louis.”

“Louis! Well, I didn't expect to hear from you so early,” his mother exclaims. Worriedly, she asks, “Oh, no, you're not calling to tell me you can't come to Christmas, are you?”

“No! Erm, I wanted to see you before Christmas, actually get some time to talk without kids climbing all over us, you and me. We could go to lunch or something. I have a couple hours free mid-day Tuesday.”

Oh!” Jay sounds shocked, and is silent for several breaths. “...Is something wrong? How worried should I be?”

“Not worried! Mum, jeez. I just want to catch up. Honest. Well, there's one thing I want to tell you, but it's just small. Nothing bad.” He hopes she won't think it's bad. He's pretty sure it'll go fine.

“Can't you just tell me now? Don't make me wait in suspense, Lou, surely if it's small it doesn't have to wait for a face-to-face. Oh, wait, no, I don't want to give you an excuse to not go to lunch me. I'll deal with it. Don't you dare tell me.” It's all said in such a rush that Louis doesn't even have a chance to slip a word in. “Okay. Okay. Why don't you just come here for lunch? Phoebe and Daisy will be at school, and Lottie and Fizzy haven't come home from London yet. I'll get the nanny to come in early for the babies.”

“Babies? They're nearly in school now,” Louis laughs.

“They'll always be my babies. Even you, too,” Jay says firmly, and Louis laughs again. It's such a mum thing to say but it warms his heart. He can relate, anyway; Lola is still his baby at 18 and he supposes she will be at 30-something, too.

“All right. I can't get there until around 12:30. Is that okay?”

“Fine, fine. See you then, love.” He can hear the smile in Jay's voice as they say their good-byes. God, he's been a shit son if she's this excited about a little lunch date.

* * *

It's so strange coming home. Jay kept the house when she and Troy divorced, so it's the house he grew up in, but it's so different. It had been so clean and quiet when Troy lived there that it felt austere and lifeless despite the opulence of the furnishings. It's still very nice, but not nearly as show-offy – Jay never felt the need to posture that Troy did, and she seems to have that impulse even less now. Happier, Louis supposes. She doesn't need to put up a front to convince people that her life is good.

The house feels much more lived-in now. The front hall is clean, but there are little chips in the legs of the tables, small dents in the floor. He spies toys stashed under the couch and little shoes in corners when he peeks into the living room. It feels like what it is: a nice, upper-middle-class home to six children. Well, only four children really, he supposes it's not quite fair anymore to group Lottie and Fizzy with the others; they're both off at university now so they're part-time residents these days.

Jay ushers him into the living room, which is full of overstuffed leather sofas – rich-looking, but easy to clean, he knows. The fussy curved wood and floral patterns of his childhood are gone. He likes the room's cosy normalcy, despite the uncomfortable pang in his chest, longing for this kind of life that he never had himself as child.

“I thought we'd just sit in here and eat off the coffee tables. The dining table is so big, it's lonely for two, and it's too cold to eat out on the terrace.”

She's made sandwiches, fruit salad, and grilled vegetables. They make small talk as they nibble, mostly trading stories about how their children are doing in school. In a lull after an anecdote about the twins, though, his mum says, “I can't take it anymore. What did you want to tell me?”

Louis smiles, though it doesn't quite reach his eyes. “Right. Well. First things first, I'm gay. That's, you don't have a problem with that, right?”

“Baby, of course I don't,” Jay frowns, grabbing his hand. “You didn't think I would?”

“No, no, not really,” Louis shakes his head. “Just wanted to check. I've been thinking...” He sighs and looks away. “That I should try harder. With you and the kids. But I don't want to hide that. I mean, not that I _have_ felt like I had to hide, I wasn't really, it just didn't seem important when I wasn't dating anyone anyway.” He shrugs.

Jay has been fighting with herself not to smile; she loses, but doesn't look bothered by it. “So you're seeing someone?”

 _Shit shit shit._ Louis did not mean to lead her down that path. She's probably had contact with his dad's lawyers too and he's not sure she'll be too thrilled at who he's dating. “Er.” Louis fidgets with his hair. “Well, er, I've been on a few dates, it's not a serious thing. You don't seem surprised by me saying I'm gay.”

“You never said it outright before, but some comments you made over the years...” She shrugs. “I wasn't sure but I'll be honest that the thought has crossed my mind.”

“Hmm.” Louis shrugs. He hadn't thought he was so obvious, but he can't really be bothered by how easily his various coming-outs have gone so far. It's certainly better than many of the alternatives. “Well, the other news is that my friend Niall and I are starting a small performing arts school in Gilmore's.” He smiles tentatively. “We've found the perfect place and we're in the process of buying it.”

“Really!” Jay exclaims. “Now, that's big news. And that's a big step to take. Niall – he must be the Irish lad – the bouncy blond one?”

“That's right. I'd forgotten you'd met him.”

Jay nods. “Well, he seemed nice. A bit... not very serious. Do you think he's the best choice for a business partner?”

Louis recoils slightly, offended on Niall's behalf. “He's my best friend.”

“I'm sure he's wonderful, but that doesn't mean that someone is good to into business with.”

Louis shakes his head. “Trust me, Mum. He's more responsible with money than me, for one thing. Just because he doesn't stress out doesn't mean he isn't practical. That was a lot of nots, that sounded weird. Erm. He is a practical guy, really, he just doesn't take things too seriously. He's a good voice of reason. He's also amazing on the guitar and piano. He's the instruments guy, I'm all voice and drama.”

“All drama. Some things never change.” Jay giggles.

“Hey, now, that's not what I meant!”

“I know, dear, sorry.”

Louis fills her in more on their plans, their goals, how excited he is to start renovating the dance hall. He's babbling happily about his plans for the stage when Jay sniffles loudly and wipes at her eyes.

He feels the smile drop off his face. “Mum, what is it?”

“Oh. You and Lola are just doing such wonderful things now. You're realizing your dreams. It's wonderful.” Her breath hitches. “I'm just sad that you've kept us away for so long and we never got to help you with any of it.” And with that, she bursts into tears.

“Mum...” He hurriedly sets down his plate and bounces over to the couch that Jay is on, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her into him. “I'm sorry, Mum. Please don't cry.”

It's a stupid thing to say and she doesn't stop crying. It takes a little time, but she gets control of her breath enough to whisper through her tears, “Why, Louis? I don't understand, I never understood, why you stayed away from us for so long.” She sobs again. “I—I understand, a little bit, why you left, but I don't understand why you didn't come _back_ , and you kept that little girl away from us, and we missed her growing up and you missed your sisters...” She dissolves into more tears. Louis rubs her back while her tears dampen the shoulder of his shirt

Louis waits for her to cry it, sobs giving way to sniffles and little hiccups. Carefully, he starts, “There are a lot of reasons, Mum.”

He's silent for a long moment. “You can tell me,” Jay says in a thick, sad voice.

Louis presses his lips together, then says, “It felt like... like you had this perfect, happy new family, and I didn't fit. I was this leftover piece from the old, bad family. _You_ didn't make me feel like that with anything you said,” he rushes to say as she draws breath to protest, “But that's how I felt. And... I was so jealous. I loved the girls, I love them, but it felt so unfair. They were going to get to grow up in a happy house with a dad who loved them and wanted them. And I...” He rubs his face with his free hand. “I was mad at you. For not leaving Troy sooner. It, ah, it hurt feeling like, um...” He sighs. “It felt like you were giving them all these things that I never got. It's like, when you and my father were together, I was never mad at you, I was mad at him. But after Lottie was born, and you and Mark and Lottie were all so happy and good together, I was really angry that I didn't have that. That I didn't get to have that when I was little.”

“I know you were trying your best.” He gives her shoulder a squeeze. “Staying with him for so long, I know you made the choice that you thought would be the best for us. For me. I get that. I don't think it was the right choice but... you didn't know how it would all work out.” He sighs heavily. “It still hurts a little but I'm not mad at you anymore.”

“Is that why you want to try now, to be closer to us? Because you've forgiven me?” Jay sounds hopeful under her tears.

“I think so, yeah. Sorry, Mum. Sorry that I held onto that for so long.” He leans his head against hers.

“Well. We can't change the past, but we can move forward.” He hears the smile in her voice, and it warms something in him.

“Yes.” He smiles slowly. “We can, can't we?”

* * *

The one thing that's bad about the holidays is Nick. The thing is, Louis' gotten used to getting a decent shag on the regular, so on one hand he's itching to see Nick. On the other hand, he's only got a limited amount of time with Lola and he wants to spend it with her, libido be damned. Lola, being a hip young thing and not a sad sack 30-something parent, does have a life of her own, so he does get in an overnight with Nick with Lola's otherwise occupied, but it's not exactly his favourite visit.

Nick is clingy and pouty all night, even after sex. He's put out about not seeing Louis more and, it turns out, feels like he's being kept away from Louis' family.

“I mean, we've been seeing each other for over a month already. Why are you coming out here like you're sneaking off? Why aren't we having lunch with your daughter in your little town diner or something?”

“Nick, the one time we went to a diner you were convinced you’d caught typhoid. And I've told you this before, you _know_ I don't just introduce people to Lola right away! It's not fair—”

“She's not a bloody child, Louis, she's an adult and unless you've been lying to me about how mature she is I think she can handle meeting me for god's sake—”

“Look, would you calm down, I don't know why you are turning this into such a thing, I just want to be sure this is serious before introducing—”

“This is serious! Do I look like I'm joking?!”

Louis stares.

 _“ I'm_ serious. I want to meet Lola, and I want you to come to Christmas and meet my parents.”

“Christmas—” Louis' eyebrows shoot up toward his hairline. He shakes his head quickly. “I have Christmas with my family, I honestly really can't.”

Nick waits for a long moment, then scoffs, “Of course not.” He walks tensely to his room and slams the door shut behind him. Louis waits for long minutes, perched on a stool in the kitchen, but he doesn't knock on the door and Nick doesn't come out. Eventually, he just lets himself out.

* * *

Louis sort of thought that was a break-up, but he’s quickly proven wrong. Flowers arrive from Nick the next day, a lush white arrangement with an elegant card covered in apologies, _didn't mean to push you, care about you, when you're ready, I just want_ _._ Then the text messages, and, well, then a few days later they do have Nick over for lunch at their house after all. It's fine. He and Lola are civil, friendly even; they are both rather brilliantly smart, and the conversation flows reasonably well. Lola has apparently become more politically aware in the last few months and watching her discuss and debate with Nick is fascinating.  

So that's all nice enough, and neither of them bring up Christmas again, though Louis is sure that Nick wants to. He feels a gnawing discomfort when he thinks about how serious Nick seems to be about them, and how unserious Louis still feels. Maybe it just needs more time.

* * *

Louis wakes up on Christmas morning to the sound of Christmas carols.

It's just a custom phone alarm, but it feels festive all the same. He sighs happily, stretching in bed. When the tune cuts off partway through and starts to repeat, he reaches for the phone to silence it, then rings Lola.

“Why are you calling me?” she mumbles into the phone when she finally picks up.

“Room service, this is your wake-up call.”

“Does that mean you're bringing me breakfast in bed?”

“Nah. We don't actually have room service here. Happy Christmas, love.”

She laughs quietly. “Happy Christmas, Dad. I'll put the kettle on, meet me in the kitchen.”

Louis pads downstairs to find a rumpled-looking Lola hovering over the kettle. “Don't we have to leave for Donny in, like, an hour?”

“Yeah?” Louis shrugs. “Plenty of time, isn't it?”

“You mean it's not going to take me ages to open my mountain of presents?” Lola pouts.

“Oh, no, you expected presents?” Louis presses a hand to his mouth. “This is awkward.”

Laughing, Lola snatches up the bag of goodies they'd gotten from Harry's yesterday before he left town to go see his family. Louis follows her with the tea once it's ready, and they settle themselves around the Christmas tree to eat baked goods straight out of the bag and exchange gifts. It really doesn't take that much time nowadays. Lola as a little girl had always wanted to play with a new toy instead of opening the rest of her gifts, and Lola as an adolescent had always wanted to start reading a new book instead of opening the rest, but she's finally learned to move it along, although she's still strangely unwilling to rip the paper.

Louis, for his part, tears apart the wrapping paper in a way that some might call over-eager. He prefers to call it efficient.

They leave the house only fifteen minutes or so past what Louis had planned, a result that he's rather proud of. “You know, I think this is going to be really nice,” Lola remarks as the car rolls through the quiet streets.

Louis makes an inquisitive “hm?”, looking out the windshield.

“I've spent time with Lottie and Fizzy, and you had that lunch with Grandma... It just seems like things are better than they've been in a long time.”

“You've probably jinxed it now,” Louis mutters darkly.

“Dad, I'm being positive.”

“Yeah, yeah...”

The house is absolute chaos when they arrive. Louis looks around in astonishment. There seem to be toys and bits of wrapping paper everywhere. Daisy opened the door for them, and she surveys the disaster with a world-weary shake of her fourteen-year-old head. “I thought Ernie and Doris would get easier the older they got, but this age is crazy,” she observes. Louis rubs his nose to hide his smile at hearing her speak as though she's terribly wise and knowledgeable, and not still a kid herself. “I don't think there's anything they like better than running and screaming.”

“I don't think we were ever that wild,” Phoebe adds, appearing seemingly out of thin air.

“I'm sure you weren't,” Lola agrees seriously.

They find Jay, Dan, and Fizzy in the kitchen, but are quickly ordered out. “You two aren't allowed anywhere near this cooker. Go play with the kids,” Jay says sternly.

“You set the kitchen on fire one time...” Louis snickers and obediently retreats.

They don't exchange presents between their two families. Louis had put his foot down on that when Lola was a few years old. It had rankled that Grandma provided more and better presents than Daddy did. Plus, the struggle of being one penniless guy trying to buy appropriate gifts for an ever-growing and rather wealthy family had driven him to frustrated, humiliated tears too many times. Jay had been furious about the gift ban for ages, but Louis thought it made Christmas a great deal less fraught.

To his amazement, Lola is proven correct. Christmas dinner is... good. It's good. The fact that Lola has been seeing her aunts – he never realized how different it would be. They talk like friends who see each other occasionally, and not like distant relatives who only talk once a year. Funny, that.

“How's your boyfriend, Louis?” Jay asks during a lull in the conversation. “Did he go away for Christmas?”

Louis stiffens instinctively, but no one gasps or shrieks in dismay. They definitely all perk up a little, but they don't look surprised. Well, Louis is a bit surprised. He laughs a little, involuntarily, realizing, _Oh, she prepped them all for this. I wish I could've seen that family meeting._ “He's, uh, good, yeah. Spending Christmas with his parents, yep.” He takes a hasty gulp of wine and hopes that they won't pry any more.

“Have you met him yet?” Lottie asks, leaning forward and looking over at Lola.

“Oh – no, we've all been too busy,” Lola says quickly. Louis would high-five her right now if he could.

“Can we do the crackers now, Mummy?” Doris asks plaintively, obviously bored. Ernie immediately starts bouncing giddily in his seat.

“Oh, yeah, I second that motion.” Louis does reach over and attempt to high-five her. She misses his hand twice before actually connecting. He turns to grin at Jay. “Please, Mummy?”

Jay looks at her two youngest, practically vibrating in their seats with excitement, and smiles. “Oh, all right. Dan, would you hand them out?”

Dan passes out the crackers somewhat randomly, and pulled very nearly the moment that everyone has one in hand. Then they're all laughing, putting on their stupid crowns and bartering for the best little trinkets. The jokes inside are as embarrassingly awful as always. They immediately make him think of Harry and his love for shit jokes, and before he's really thought it through, he's already taken a picture of the little slip of paper and texted it to Harry.

Harry replies almost immediately with a photo of his own: A picture of him wearing a purple paper crown, sticking his tongue out and holding a joke from his own Christmas cracker in front of his face. Louis laughs and angles the phone toward Lola so she can see.

“Louis, no texting at the dinner table! Especially not on Christmas!” Jay exclaims.

“Are you texting your boyfriend?” Fizzy asks eagerly.

“Huh? N-no, it's just my friend Harry,” Louis says.

“Let's take a picture of us in our crowns and send it back,” Lola giggles, reaching for the phone.

“Put that thing away or no dessert for you,” Jay says sternly. “Take your selfies after dinner if you must. Honestly.”

Louis feigns putting the phone away, but he surreptitiously writes back under the table, _My mummy says I'm not allowed to text at the dinner table anymore : (_. The phone soon buzzes with a reply; Louis doesn't chance looking at it right away, but he hopes he's made Harry laugh. It makes him feel warm and content, feeling that Harry is laughing with him as he sits with his family and enjoys the happiest Christmas he's had with them... ever, probably.

It's a shocking thought. He did love Christmas when he was a boy – the lights, the presents, the food, all the trappings were always perfect – but there was always such a tension between his parents. That one Christmas when his mother had been single had been sweet and precious, just the two of them, but it had a tinge of sadness to it. And then she'd found Mark, and everything changed again.

This is the easiest he and his mum have been with each other in more than twenty years. He watches her, clearly a little frazzled but glowing with happiness as she oversees the full table of her happily chattering family.

  
They stay later than they ever have before at Christmas, late enough that they get hungry again and eat cold leftovers out of the fridge, late enough that Doris and Ernie start yawning over the puzzle that Louis is helping them put together. Jay hugs him so, so tightly when they leave, and whispers a heartfelt “thank you” into his hair. He doesn't need to ask her why; he just hugs her back. He's grateful, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title based on Gilmore Girls episode title "Last Week Tights, This Week Fights". (There's usually no correlation with the actual episode contents; I just found the title suitable.)


	8. Episode 8: Back in the Saddle Again

* * *

  **JANUARY 2016**

* * *

 

“He asked you for your number?!” Niall demands incredulously as he pushes open the door to Harry's shop.

“Yes!” Louis exclaims indignantly. “I couldn't believe it! It was _so_ inappropriate!”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Niall cackles. “This is _amazing._ You should go back to school, mate, you'd get so much play. Who could have seen this coming!”

“Excuse you,” Louis gasps. _“_ _Of course_ everyone wants to get all up on this.” He waves a hand at himself. “It's my cross to bear.”

Of course that's when Harry appears, eyebrow raised. “Do I even want to ask?”

“A student propositioned Lou,” Niall howls, barely able to speak through his gales of laughter.

“I drove Lola back from break, and we were hanging out at this coffee shop, and one of her classmates...” Louis puts his head into his heads. “Oh, god, it was so awkward.”

“You said yes, right?” Niall wiggles his eyebrows suggestively before dissolving into more guffaws.

“Jesus, Niall! He was, like, twenty at most! No!” Louis' voice climbs to a rather embarrassing high note as he protests. “He goes to school with my _daughter_. Fuck, who even asks out their classmate's _dad_ _?_ Who does that?!”

Harry is leaning forward and shaking his curls into his face to hide his giggles. “That is quite bold,” he chuckles, voice slow and rich.

“Imagine: Lola has two daddies, one of them is in her English class...”

 _“Ew_ _._ Shut up, Niall, _please._ ”

Harry raps Niall sharply on the head with his pen. “Be nice or I won't bring you snacks.”

“Too cruel.”

“Hmm.” Harry smiles at Louis. It's a strange smile – small, but it feels very sincere; Harry's eyes are soft and his dimples are sharp. Louis feels an odd fluttering in his stomach. “What'll you have, hot stuff?”

Louis groans and drops his head to the table with a thump. “Muffins. And whiskey so I can drink to forget children hitting on me.”

“Muffin and a cuppa,” Harry agrees. “Day-old crusts for Niall. Got it.”

The lazy Christmastime days have given way and things are back to normal. Well, the new normal. Except for Lola being off at uni, it's a lot like the old normal: classes are back in session, everyone's back at work, and Louis is being teased mercilessly by his so-called friends.

Aside from the usual, they're now officially owners of the dance hall – signing the last piece of paper had been tragically anticlimactic. He thinks that having the builders come in and start working on the place will be much more exciting.

Having Lola gone means he also has far fewer excuses to avoid Nick. Not that he would avoid his boyfriend. Except he kind of is.

It turns out that Nick is still mad about it. “It was the holidays, Nick,” Louis says defensively, untangling himself from Nick and the sweaty sheets. “This is a new relationship, you and me, and it was Lola's first Christmas home from uni. Can't you see why I'd put her first, this time?”

“I just wonder when you're ever going to put me first.”

Nick looks genuinely hurt. Louis feels like shit. “I'm sorry.”

“I can't believe you left me without someone to kiss on New Year's,” Nick continues. “No one but Pig, all alone in my flat at midnight.”

“Weren't you at some fancy lawyer party?”

“Okay, yes, but you should have been there with me for me to show off, not doing... whatever it was you were doing.”

(He had been watching the fireworks in the town square of Gilmore's, sandwiched between Lola and Harry on a bench, sipping spiked hot chocolate from Harry's Thermos and sharing the warmth of his body. He doesn't share this memory with Nick.)

“I can't just set aside my entire life for you,” Louis snaps.

“You could set aside a _little_. Look, will you at least come meet my parents? I get that Christmas is a weird sort of extra pressure but it's not Christmas anymore.”

Louis looks at Nick for a long time, and then at the wall, and at his hands, and then back at Nick, waiting so patiently, in his bed with his mussed hair. “I don't think we should do this anymore,” he blurts.

“What?” Nick sits up abruptly and reaches for Louis. Louis slides out of the bed and starts searching for his clothes.

“You, me, this thing. You're just – you're great, Nick, but you seem to want something really serious and I'm just, I'm just not ready for it. I keep letting you down and it's no good. I'm not going to give you what you want,” he babbles as he pulls his jeans on.

“Jesus – Louis, you can't break up with me for asking to meet my parents – fuck – it can wait if that's how it has to be.”

Louis shakes his head. He realizes that he hasn't put his pants on and he's lost track of his socks. They'll have to be abandoned in the interest of a quick getaway. “I don't know that I'm ever going to want to, Nick, that's the problem, don't you see? This is – shit, I'm so sorry, but I just don't think I feel the same as you.”

“Louis, don't do this,” Nick says weakly.

“I've told myself that I need more time, but I don't think that's it. I'm so sorry, you're great really, I'm probably just emotionally deficient or something. Good-bye, Nick.”

“Don't just run away, Louis, we need to talk about this,” Nick pleads, following Louis through his apartment with a champagne-coloured sheet wrapped around his waist. Louis doesn't listen, though, and he doesn't talk; he grabs his overnight bag and flees Nick's house at one in the bloody morning.

* * *

A few nights later, Louis is home alone, still feeling a bit groggy from the previous night. He'd let slip to Niall that he'd broken up with Nick, and Niall had insisted that they go drinking. Louis had argued vehemently against it – he was, after all, the dumper and not the dumpee, and was more relieved than anything to not feel so guilty anymore about being such an awful boyfriend. Niall wouldn't back down, though, and tonight Louis has the all-day hangover to show for it.

He's eating cereal on the couch in his fuzziest pyjamas and his biggest, cosiest jumper when there's a knock at the door. “This better be quick, or my cereal's going to get soggy,” he mutters as he trudges to the door. (Three days single and he's now talking to himself. Worrisome.)

He can't hide the surprise from his face when he sees Harry on the other side of the door – Harry as Louis rarely sees him, a frown scrunching his forehead, full lips pressed together in a thin line. He looks pissed.

“What's up?” Louis asks carefully.

Harry takes a deep breath in through his nose, then slowly says, “Niall texted me last night that I should come drink at the pub with you and him because you'd just had a break-up. Lou, I didn't even know you were dating someone.”

“Oh... uh...” Louis grits his teeth. He's desperately trying to think of something to say that won't sound extremely shitty. He's failing.

“Why would you not tell me something like that?”

“I hardly told anyone,” he says weakly.

“Since when was I _anyone_?” Harry crosses his arms. “I thought I was your _friend_.”

“Harry! Of course you're my friend! One of my best friends!” Louis cries frantically.

“Then why would you not _tell_ me?”

“I...” Louis fish-mouths for a few seconds. “Come inside, please. The neighbours are going to hear. It's late.”

Harry just glares at him, arms crossed.

“Please come inside.”

Nothing.

“Are you seriously... Harry, please.”

Nothing.

“Okay, shit, uhh. Look, it's, like.” He scratches at the nape of his neck, looking down. “Like, telling people that I'm dating someone requires me to, erm, come out? I mean, it's not like I expect, er, anything bad really, people here are pretty good, but, it feels bigger than just, like, saying I'm dating someone.” He pauses, but Harry doesn't say anything. “'Cuz, like, I had a boyfriend and not a girlfriend?”

Harry's still not saying anything, the absolute arsehole. It feels like Louis' stomach is tying itself into knots and turning to lead. He raises his head. Harry's eyes are flashing, his mouth is pinched tight, and his nostrils are flaring with barely-contained anger.

_Oh, shit._

In a strained voice, Louis manages to point out, “I just came out to you, and I'm pretty sure that's not why you're looking at me like that, but I'd really appreciate it if you'd clear that up, because this _isn't easy_.”

“Oh my _god,_ ” Harry exclaims, throwing his arms into the air. Louis takes a startled step back. “Louis Austin, you absolute _ass_. I can't believe you could be nervous about coming out to me! Of all people!” 

“Uh...” Louis gapes at him.

“You're going to catch flies like that,” Harry snaps, crossing his arms again and turning his head to the side with a sniff.

“I... you... Okay, no, my brain's scrambled now.” Louis shakes his head sharply. “Are you saying that you're gay?”

“I'm bi! Thanks for asking!”

“You... seem angry.” Louis blinks.

“I literally _ran around the town square wearing a rainbow flag_ _,_ but I dated a few women so everyone just thinks I'm... just eccentric or something! Including you, apparently!”

“Uhhh. Do you want to come inside? Myrna's porch light just switched on so she's definitely listening.”

 _“ _I_ 'm _ not trying to keep any secrets,” Harry says snippily.

“I'm not keeping _secrets_ , I'm trying to maintain some fucking _privacy_ ,” Louis hisses. “So I'm going inside. You can come in if you have something else to say, or you can stay out here when I shut the door.”

He steps fully into the house to stand by the edge of the door, leaving room for Harry to enter. Harry takes in a deep breath, and looks suddenly uncertain. He bites his lip and slowly shakes his head, eyes locked with Louis'.

So Louis shuts the door in his face.

He doesn't feel well.

He stands and stares at the door.

It doesn't take long to hear Harry's footsteps, and then the sound of the ignition, the engine turning over, the wheels crunching on gravel.

Louis slides down to sit on the floor of the entryway. Dimly, he ponders that Lola would scold him for rubbing his jammies on the dirty floor where people walk in their dirty shoes. He doesn't really care. Most of his brain is too busy staring at the door and thinking, _What the fuck just happened?_

_I think I fucked up._

_I don't know how to fix it._

_I don't know what just happened between us._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from the Gilmore Girls episode of the same name. (There's usually no correlation with the actual episode contents; I just found the title suitable.)


	9. Episode 9: Forgiveness and Stuff

* * *

  **FEBRUARY 2016**

* * *

 

“Everybody hates me,” Louis moans.

Lola sighs from the other end of the phone. “Of course they don't.”

“I broke a decent guy's heart, Harry's pissed at me for not telling him, and Niall's pissed at me for being pissed at him for telling Harry.”

“What about Zayn and Liam?”

“Zayn's default position is that we're all idiots anyway. Liam, I don't know.”

“So you've just been avoiding everyone?”

Louis scowls. “I mean... not on _purpose_.”

“Where are you now?”

“At the dance hall! I'm helping rebuild.”

“So you're hovering and driving the builders crazy.”

“I'm _helping_. I learned how to nail things! I've hammered in like a dozen nails already. I'm practically an expert.”

“Okay. Dad. Real talk. You owe Harry an apology. You _did_ date someone for two months and you didn't tell your best friend. That's weird. He may have overreacted a bit but it is kind of reasonable that he's hurt. Don't make that sad dying-whale noise just because you know I'm right. And honestly, it wasn't so unreasonable for Niall to think you would've told Harry, either.”

“This stinks,” Louis whines.

Of course she's right, damn the sensible child.

He starts with Niall, because that's the easy one.

 **Louis to Niall, 3:14 PM**  
_OK so I may have overreacted. Still think you should’ve asked me before texting Haz but I can see why you assumed he'd know & I never told you to keep it secret. So. Sorry. Bros???_

 **Niall to Louis, 3:17 PM**  
_Thanks Louis. Sorry for assuming... you're dumb as hell for not telling him tho. BROS !!!!!_

 **Louis to Niall, 3:19 PM**  
_Rub my nose in it why don't you. Fucker_

 **Niall to Louis, 3:20 PM**  
_Hahahahaha asshole_

The Harry situation is a bit trickier. A text message won't cut it – he suspects that a text apology would make things worse, actually. He's not entirely sure he's ready to face Harry, though, and he's not sure just how abject of an apology is required. In hindsight, it might have been all the flowers that convinced him to date a guy he didn't even like that much, so he thinks they have a good chance of working on his friend who likes him and loves flowers.

He almost changes his mind when he goes to the florist and sees how much the bloody things actually cost. He steels himself, though, takes out his credit card, and makes it happen.

He takes the flowers home with him so he can labour over the note without the florist staring at him. His first thought is that he'll sneak out at night and leave them on Harry's doorstep for him to find in the morning when he opens up the cafe. Then he remembers that it's February, and very cold, and he's not sure if that will hurt the flowers. Would they wilt or something? He's afraid to risk it. He could wake up abominably early and place the flowers shortly before shop opening, but it'll be a Sunday and robbing himself of a weekend lie-in is against his religion.

This is how he ends up lurking just around the corner from Harry's, asking passers-by where they're going. He pays a kid ten pounds to deliver the flowers to Harry, watches from around the corner to be sure that he does it, and then runs.

What he actually wants to do is run into the shop and snatch the flowers back, because the moment the bouquet leaves his hands, he starts panicking that his note was all wrong. It was certainly stupid and he's probably said the wrong thing and picked the wrong flowers and made everything worse. If this were any other time, he'd comfort himself with cake and tea at Harry's, but he can't, so instead he goes home and eats crisps until he feels ill.

* * *

Tuesday evening finds him back at the dance hall. “I always think of it as the dance hall, but it's not actually the dance hall anymore,” he muses to Niall. The contractors are replacing some rotted wood and shoring up beams. “Soon, we'll have a stage in here. What do we call it?”

“I was thinking the Horan-Austin Performing Arts Centre.”

“Austin-Horan Centre for the Performing Arts. More words in there, makes it sound posher.”

“Posh is crucial, definitely.”

“A-H-C-P-A.... The acronym doesn't really roll off the tongue.”

They consider in silence, watching the builders work. “This counts as us working, right?” Niall asks. “I know that we're just sitting here watching. But. We're, like, thinking about the name. That's work.”

“Counts, sure,” Louis agrees easily. “Why's that matter, though?”

Niall sighs. “Annie's cross with me for not helping with the wedding more. Every time we're together there's all these questions. I just had no idea there were so many decisions we'd have to make. Like, how am I even supposed to have an opinion about napkin colours? Who cares? They're napkins!”

Louis laughs. “Mate, you're probably choosing the wrong person to bitch to. I _wish_ I had someone like you've got to fuss over napkin colours with.”

Niall winces. “Sorry. Okay, but you say that now, but _seriously_...”

“Look, just name a colour. If you get the right answer, she'll be thrilled by how thoughtful you are, and if you say the wrong thing, she'll just be like, 'oh, but I was thinking lavender,' and then you say 'oh, lavender, brilliant,' and there you go, sorted.”

Niall looks at him thoughtfully. “You know, it's not like you're stupid at relationship stuff, you just haven't really tried at it. I reckon you'll find yourself a real partner if you just put yourself out there, you know?”

Louis is thinking of what to say that ( _thanks, mate_? _Fuck off with your condescension_?) when he hears a loud scuff. Looking up, his breath catches when he sees Harry standing uncertainly in the open doorway. He looks soft and cosy in jeans and a knitted jumper, his curls a bit frizzy. “Hey, Harry,” Niall greets him. “What's up?”

“Oh, hey, Niall. Um, I was wondering if you had a minute to talk, Louis...?”

“Yeah, of course.” Louis stands up, brushing the dust off his trousers.

“I'll just bugger off, then,” Niall says brightly, subtle as ever.

“Want to go to the office?” Louis offers to Harry as Niall departs. “It's a little warmer there, and there's a kettle, if you want tea.”

“Yeah, sure.”

There's a line of small rooms along one side of the large building. They were storage rooms, mainly, in the past. Right now, the builders are using a few of them for materials and tools while they renovate the hall, but Louis and Niall have set one room up as their office for the moment. It has a few battered old tables, chairs, and shelves, one of which houses the all-important kettle with the large tin of his favourite tea. Harry pokes around curiously but silently as Louis puts the kettle on and drops tea bags into mugs.

Louis fidgets with the tea things. He's waiting for Harry to speak, not sure himself what to say. He fills the mugs and bring them over to the least-filthy table, taking a seat.

Harry sits, too, and softly says, “I liked the flowers.” He pulls a mug over to himself and swirls the tea bag around in it.

He doesn't say anything else, so Louis shyly says, “I'm glad. I wasn't sure... but I figured that you like flowers.”

Harry smiles a little. “Don't know how you got that idea. There's only flowers on, like, less than half of the things I own.”

“Sorry I didn't realize you were bi,” Louis blurts, looking down at his hands gripping the hot mug. “I guess I never really thought about it. Gilmore's isn't exactly a queer hotbed.”

“Tell me about it,” Harry sighs.

Louis laughs drily. “Never mattered to me, since I decided I wouldn't date while Lola was little anyway. It never seemed worth it, to me, to risk people being weird about my sexuality when I wouldn't be seeing anyone anyway.”

Harry wrinkles his nose. “I thought I was pretty open but apparently a lot of people can't take a hint.” Louis raises his hand guiltily. “Yeah,” Harry laughs. “Guess I never did tell you outright.”

Louis fishes out his tea bag. It's probably over brewed already.

“I just don't understand why you didn't tell me you were seeing someone,” Harry says sadly.

“I don't either,” Louis admits.

Harry takes in a deep breath, but he doesn't say anything.

“Sorry. That's a bit shit of me, isn't it? 'm not all about that deep introspective life, I just do stuff.”

Harry chuckles, shaking his head.

“Hey, Louis.” Louis startles as one of the builders appears in the doorway. “There's this guy in the hall asking for you. Tall skinny guy, never seen him around here before.”

“Oh...” Louis grimaces and prays that it's not who he thinks it is. “I'll be right out, yeah, thanks, Joe.” To Harry, he says, “Sorry, this won't take a minute. You can hang out here and drink your tea or... whatever. I'll be right back.”

His heart sinks when he sees exactly who expected standing in the hall: Nick. “What are you doing here?” he hisses, approaching the taller man.

“You haven't been answering my calls,” Nick frowns. “We need to talk about—”

“Outside,” Louis snaps, grabbing Nick by his designer-coat-clad elbow and practically dragging him out. He does not need all the builders seeing whatever argument is about to happen; they're all gossips and their wives are even bigger ones.

“Why are you here, Nick?” Louis wraps his arms around himself. The whole hall is a bit cool at the moment – the old insulation and heating is decidedly substandard – so he's not freezing, but he's still not dressed for the outdoors.

“I've tried to give you time,” Nick says calmly, “but it's been weeks, Louis, and I've called you a million times and you haven't answered, so I had to come here.”

Louis gapes at him. “What do you mean, you've given me time?”

“To apologize, and to sort things out.”

“To—Nick, we're _broken up_ ,” Louis sputters. “I broke up with you! That's why I'm not answering your calls!”

“Well, I don't accept that,” Nick says smoothly. “I know that I pressured you about meeting family, and you panicked, but you can't just end our relationship over that.”

“But I have ended our relationship,” Louis argues. “This isn't something we have to agree on. I've dumped you, sorry, that's awful of me to say, but I did.”

“Louis, come here,” Nick says, stepping forward and putting his hands on Louis' shoulders, looming over him. Louis startles and tries to step back, but Nick has a surprisingly strong grip. Nick's face is suddenly approaching his at an alarmingly quick rate, and Louis suddenly realizes that he can actually just duck down and slip out of Nick's hands. “ _Louis_ ,” Nick snaps exasperatedly as Louis darts backwards.

“I'm not trying to make this difficult or dramatic, but seriously, leave me alone, Nick!”

“Louis, stop being so immature about this—”

“Hey!” Louis looks over in shock, hearing Harry's low voice boom out, the sharpest and loudest he's heard it since that one time when the sixth form boys had been rough-housing in the cafe. Harry strides up quickly, his face thunderous. “Maybe you should try actually listening to him, and go away,” Harry snaps at Nick.

Nick steps back, looking Harry up and down with raised eyebrows. “I don't know who you are, mate, but I'm sure it's none of your business.”

“ _I'm_ Louis' best friend, and you're bothering him, so I'm making it my business.”

“Oh for the love of...” Louis looks beseechingly up at the sky, but there are no bolts from out of the dark night to put him out of his misery. “Harry, back off, please. Nick, you listen to me. I'm sorry, but we're broken up and I don't want to see you around here anymore. We're going back inside now, and you're going to leave.” He turns Harry around with a firm hand on his lower back and ushers him inside, shutting the door quickly behind him and not looking back.

Leaning against the door, he blows out a frustrated breath. “Sorry. Didn't expect that. Jeez, I'm embarrassed.”

“That was your boyfriend?” Harry asks incredulously. “He seems like a dick.”

“Ex-boyfriend. Very much ex. He's not all bad, but that... okay, sometimes he is kind of a dick. Sorry you had to see that.”

“Well.” Harry ponders for a moment. “Pub?”

Louis grins. “Yeah, all right.”

* * *

Things between them are okay again, after that, but they're not exactly normal.

There's a tension in their friendship that wasn't there before. Sometimes, Louis finds himself staring at Harry and marvelling at how very beautiful he is. He gets caught up tracing a curl with his gaze, or considering exactly what sort of green Harry's eyes are, or wondering just how soft Harry's lips are. Sometimes, Harry catches him, but all he does is give Louis a tiny smile, shy and sweet, before he turns away. When he touches Harry, he seems to catch his attention so completely. Even if all he's doing is asking for another tea, his hand on Harry's arm seems to transport them to their own little world where nothing else exists.

Looking back, Louis thinks he must have had some inkling all along – or more than just an inkling – that Harry wasn't straight. He just didn't let himself see it. He's gotten quite good at shutting down his interest in the presumably-straight men he encounters every day. It's not nearly as easy not to find Harry devastatingly attractive if he might have a shot with him.

He's not entirely sure what to do about that. Fortunately, there's loads else to preoccupy him while he stews over Harry.

He decides it's time to make sure he’s out to all the lads before someone else’s feelings get hurt. At this point, only Liam doesn’t know, but it’s possible that the others still think it’s a secret. He just goes for it one night when they're all together at the pub, and it goes exactly as he expected. Zayn just rolls his eyes and says, “You told me you were going on a date with a bloke. What, was I not supposed to know?” Liam gets all misty-eyed and makes heartfelt proclamations about how much he loves Louis and how this won't change their friendship while Zayn and Harry snicker. They group-hug it out. And, really, nothing changes.

“There's just one thing I want to know, though,” Zayn starts.

Louis sighs. “No, Zayn, I won't explain anal sex to you.”

“I don't need your help with _that_ ,” Zayn scoffs, and that's a statement with some intriguing implications, but Louis doesn't have a chance to pounce before Zayn continues, “How do you end up as a teen dad if you're gay? I mean, having a baby on purpose, I know you can do that, but how does a gay kid have an _accidental_ pregnancy?”

“Seriously?” Louis raises his eyebrows. “Do I really need to spell this out?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Niall interjects immediately.

“We are all kind of wondering,” Liam says apologetically.

“Ugh. Okay, very long story short. Picture sixteen-year-old me: smart, popular, on the footie team, shit home life, just trying to be a normal lad 'cause my bio-dad is a massive homophobe, amongst his other charming qualities. So I had some, you know, issues with meself. I spent the summer going to parties, getting drunk, and banging girls. Before you ask, yes, it took a bit of extra effort to, you know, obviously, but I got there.” He shrugs. “Made the mistake of sleeping with a girl who figured that if she got pregnant, I'd have to marry her and take care of her and she'd be set for life.” He laughs; it has a more than a bit of a bitter, cruel edge to it.

“So that's why you didn't marry her,” Niall says, as if it's all suddenly clicking.

“Because I'm gay, you mean? Well, that and I think she's a manipulative, shallow, greedy person and I didn't want to spend a minute more with her than I had to.”

“I like this story, it's funny,” Zayn giggles. Liam punches him in the arm.

“Seriously, my parents hated each other, but they stayed together because they thought it was right for me, and it was horrible. We all would've been better off apart.” Louis shakes his head. “Just like me and Beth were. That's one decision I've never second-guessed. At least I never put Lola through _that_.”

They all consider Louis' words quietly, sipping at their beers. Harry puts a hand on Louis' forearm to give him a reassuring squeeze, and they exchange small smiles.

“But I still don't get how you can have sex with a woman if you're gay,” Niall says plaintively. Louis drops his head to the sticky wood of the table with a loud thump.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title based on Gilmore Girls episode title of the same name. (There's usually no correlation with the actual episode contents; I just found the title suitable.)


	10. Episode 10: The Theatre, The Wedding, and Harry Styles

* * *

  **MARCH 2016**

* * *

 

“...and here it is! Behold, our very first practice room!”

Louis flings the door open as dramatically as he can while holding his phone steady. He hears Lola's happy squeal come through the speakers. “Poke the squishy wall for me!” she demands.

Louis obediently presses his hand into the thick foam soundproofing that covers the walls, then spins around to show her the piano, the chairs, and the music stands. “We should put up posters in here, right? Posters would be cool.”

“Yeah, definitely! Oh, I know this cool music shop… I’ll try to send you some, or bring some next time I’m home.”

Louis presses the button to switch which camera is being used so Lola can see his face again in the video chat instead of the room's walls. “It looks great,” she gushes.

Louis laughs. “It's just a generic practice room, love. But thanks.”

“But it's your practice room! In your own business!” She claps her hands to her cheeks and beams at him. “I'm so happy for you.”

“I'm happy, too.” In the corner of the screen that shows himself, he sees his eyes crinkle as he grins.

“So when will you actually start holding lessons there?”

“Next week, actually. They're ready and the heating works now, so, why wait, you know? We'll inform all the students this week and then they'll come here next week.”

“Wow. What's next?”

“Well, getting the theatre ready will take a few more months still. I've had them expand the foyer a little so it can double as the music shop, and that's almost done. It's all framed out and they just need to do the insulation and the interior walls. And the floor. Then they'll install some display cases and shelves, it'll be pretty cool. That, I dunno, I think it'll be done enough that we could start doing some business out of there in a month or two.”

“Man. That's amazing.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, anything else to show? If not, I probably should finish reading this chapter.”

“Go, studious child.”

Louis hangs up, and looks around himself with a happy sigh. _Getting there_.

* * *

The first day of lessons at their _theatre_ (not a dance hall any longer!) is far from being a grand opening, but it feels like one. Liam puts up some balloons and streamers around the entrance, and Harry drops off a tray of cupcakes. He fancies that even the students are excited and put in a little extra effort. He and Niall celebrate after each lesson. (“Could you hear me?” “Not a peep, mate, not a peep! Could you hear me?” “Not one note!” “ _High-five!_ ”)

There's no waiting area yet – someday, they'll have comfortable chairs in the foyer; for now they have some rusty old chairs lurking in the hallway outside the practice rooms. Louis accidentally leaves the office unlocked and discovers several parents and children pilfering his tea during one of the lessons. It's far from perfect, but it's working.

“They're complaining about not having a waiting room,” Louis says later that night over beers, “but have they already forgotten that the waiting room used to literally be Niall's living room?”

“They've had a taste of the future and they want more,” Niall answers sagely.

“I don't understand how they wouldn't see it as a step up. Niall's living room has far too much sports stuff. It doesn't cultivate an artistic sensibility at all,” Zayn sniffs. Niall throws a beer mat at him.

“Thanks for making it special, you guys,” Louis says to Liam and Harry. “It was really nice. I didn't think it would feel like such a big deal, considering most of the building is still half-torn apart, but it was... something else, having the lessons there.”

“We're proud of you, Lou,” Liam says sincerely.

“Yeah. Our pleasure.” Harry smiles. Louis grins and ducks his head; it's the only way to stop himself staring at Harry, but it just looks happy and bashful, he reckons.

* * *

Walking through town a few days later, smiling at the brave flowers that have started to show themselves, he considers whether he ought to do something about the Harry situation.

The thing is, they've been flirting, he thinks. It's very subtle flirting – lingering touches, sweet smiles, eyes locking, tucking a flower behind the other man's ear. All very deniable stuff. None of the heavy-handed innuendo that Nick had laid on so thick. That had been obnoxious, but Louis has to admit, it made it very clear how things stood. With Harry, it's a guessing game as to how exactly what he feels, what exactly he wants. But if Louis is honest with himself, yeah, they've been flirting.

The other thing, though, is that Harry is one of his best friends. Arguably, the only person closer to him is Niall. Harry's friendship is so very important to him and he doesn't want to endanger it.

But he does want very badly to be more than friends with Harry. The big, scary question is, does he want that badly enough to risk their friendship?

_Nothing ventured, nothing gained_ , he thinks. _Oh, that'd be a good tattoo_. He pulls out his phone to make a note to himself to that effect.

A few hours later, sitting at the kitchen table and eating some chicken nuggets, he realize that he's spent his evening researching fonts and thinking about where he would get this hypothetical and very cliche tattoo, and he thinks he might have an avoidance problem.

* * *

“Here.” Louis shoves a small bouquet of flowers into Harry's hands and quickly frowns down at his menu, as though he doesn't already have the thing memorized.

“Okay?” Harry shifts his notepad to the crook of his arm to cradle the flowers. “Are these for me or am I just holding them for you for some reason?” he asks tentatively.

“Of course they're for you,” Louis mumbles. “Do you have blueberry muffins? I fancy blueberry today.”

“Sure, I've got blueberry. I'll just...” Harry drifts off while Louis stares at the table, cheeks flaming. How can he possibly do – whatever it is that he's doing? (Courting Harry? Is that what he's doing?) The pit of his stomach hurts with nervousness. (Or maybe he's just hungry.)

He twists abruptly. (Oh no. He's acting like such a weirdo. _Calm the fuck down, Louis_.) But, oh. Harry is arranging the flowers in a vase, his hands moving gently, a soft and slightly dopey smile on his face. _Okay. Score one for Louis_.

He turns quickly back to his table, hoping Harry didn't catch him, and pulls out his phone to try to look busy.

Harry comes back with tea and a muffin, but instead of just setting them down and moving on, he sits down in the chair next to Louis. “Hey, Lou, I want to ask you something.”

“Yeah, what's up?”

“You know my sister, Gemma.” Louis nods – he's met her a few times when she visited Harry and her hometown. “She's getting married this weekend, outside of London. Do you want to come with me?”

Louis stares. “Like, as your date?”

Harry scratches his cheek and looks to the side. “I mean, yeah, that's like what I was thinking. If you wanted. I know it's kind of a drive but it'd be fun to have you there. Her London friends, it's not really my scene, you know, but she always throws a good party. Weird but good. Free booze, good music, that sort of thing.”

_He fucking beat me to it!_ Louis is slightly outraged because dammit, he does have the balls to ask Harry out first, he _did_ , and now he'll never get to prove it.

Oh well. A date's a date. Even if it is to a wedding. Privately, Louis thinks that's the worst first date idea he's ever heard. A wedding is romantic, yes, but it's far too romantic for a first date. It seems like a lot of pressure. No matter. He can prove that he's up to this.

“Been a while since I've been to a good party. Yeah, sure,” Louis answers, trying desperately to play it cool. Harry immediately grins at him with no inhibitions, though. Louis grins back but he's sure that he still wins at playing it cool because no one's smile is as happy and beautiful as Harry's.

* * *

Harry rings him Thursday evening to talk about their plans. “So I was thinking that we could drive down together, but then I was informed that I have to be there Friday night to help with a few things, and set up starts pretty early on Saturday anyway. I have a hotel room so you _could_ come with me on Friday if you want...”

“Nah, I don't mind driving meself,” Louis says, phone tucked up against his ear while he folds his laundry. “I was thinking I'd leave a little extra time and meet Lola for lunch or something beforehand.”

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense. I wish I could join you! Give her a hug for me.”

“Yeah, Haz, of course. So what time do I need to be at the place?”

“I'll text you the address and the time. _Please_ be early.”

Louis hums noncommittally. “What's in it for me?”

“Louis, come on. Me not being furious at you for ruining my sister's wedding?”

“You're so dramatic. Me being two seconds late isn't going to ruin anyone's wedding. And you said she was a chill bride. Do better.”

“I'll think about it. Okay, see you Saturday. At 3:30 and no later. I'll text you. Byyyye Lou.”

* * *

The drive from Gilmore's to Oxford takes more than three hours. Louis had had to leave the house by 9 AM, which is earlier than he'd like for a weekend, but not too terrible, especially since it means he gets to see Lola.

When he gets to her room, he's greeted with a shock: his normally fresh-faced daughter has a full face of make-up on, so excessive that he actually does a double-take. “You don't have to get all tarted up for lunch with me, love,” he blurts out.

“Dad, ew, rude,” Lola laughs. “Come in, I was going to wash this off; you're here earlier than I expected.”

“I said I'd be here by noon, and it's noon,” he says.

“Yeah, exactly. Lottie's been teaching me about make-up,” Lola says brightly. They step into the little common room of the suite and there's his little sister, wearing an impressive but more expertly-applied face herself, lording over a table covered in a dazzling array of cosmetics.

“Is this all yours?” he asks, gawking.

“Yeah,” Lottie says proudly, standing and giving him a tentative hug. “Surprise! Good to see you, Louis.”

“Yeah, likewise. Didn't know you'd be here.”

“Like she said, surprise!” Lola calls. Louis hears the tap turn on in the bathroom.

“I started by having her put on way too little make-up, and then a good amount, and then we just went crazy overboard to see what that's like,” Lottie says, rearranging various pots of cosmetics according to some inscrutable system. Louis is secretly relieved to know that Lola's look was officially deemed “too much” and not “just right.” She continues, “It's the kind of thing I learned by pinching Mum's make-up and going crazy with it, you know?”

Louis bristles. “Is this going to be one of those you're-a-bad-dad-because-she-doesn't-have-a-mum things, because I—”

“ _Dad!_ ” Lola yells from the bathroom. She sticks her wet face out from the bathroom. “Facts aren't personal attacks, remember?”

Louis narrows his eyes in her direction as she ducks back into the bathroom.

“I really didn't mean it like that. We're not always trying to pick a fight with you,” Lottie says, a trifle sullenly. “Lola and I actually hang out and talk, you know, she's told me about her mum. Trust me, I believe that you've all been better off without her.”

“Well... thanks,” Louis answers carefully.

“The only thing you did wrong was violating the rule of not sticking it in the crazy,” she adds blithely.

Louis' jaw drops. “Did you actually just say that? Oh, no, that's so wrong.” He thinks he hears muffled giggles coming from the bathroom, but he's not really sure.

Lola emerges soon after – there's still a bit of eyeliner stuck around her eye and between her lashes, but she looks much more normal. “Should we re-do the normal make-up look again?”

“I think it'd be good practice,” Lottie nods.

“Maybe after lunch?” Louis ventures. “Or was your plan actually that Pops would just sit around watching you insolent children play with make-up?”

“For calling me an insolent child, I should do that,” Lola counters.

“Oh, Lord save me,” Louis cries. “I take back every bad thing I've ever said, just let me have lunch!”

It still throws him a bit to see Lola and Lottie spending time together. With the small age gap between them - and a lot less baggage than there is between Louis and Lottie - it’s sort of natural that they’d be close. They have a very nice friendship, and Louis tentatively approves right up until he realizes that teasing him is the perfect bonding opportunity for them.

“So I hear you have a hot date tonight,” Lottie smirks.

Louis frowns at Lola. “Traitor.”

“What did I _just_ say about facts, Dad?” Lola laughs.

“It’s not a hot date. I’m just keeping him company at his sister’s wedding.”

“Weddings are awfully romantic,” Lottie observes, resting her chin on her hand. “Bit heavy, isn’t it? Because this is a new guy, right, not the one you told us about at Christmas?”

Louis narrows his eyes at her judgemental tone, but deflects by addressing Lola. “Come on, you don’t even want to hear about my love life. Er, right?”

“Are you kidding?” Lola raises her eyebrows. “You and Harry, this is about to be the love story of the decade. The gossip is worth its weight in gold. I _need_ to hear about it.”

“Ugh. Seriously?”

She laughs. “You know I’m not going to sell you out, but of course I want to know how things go!” She smacks him lightly on the arm. “You’d better keep me updated.”

“Ow, fine! Well, are you going to repay me with any news? Any love interests for you?” He waggles his eyebrows.

Lottie opens her mouth, and Louis hears something that could be the sound of a sharp kick delivered to a shin under the table. “No, and honestly some of the stuff I’ve been reading recently makes me think I should just stay single forever. No offense. But did you know how much of a scumbag Lord Byron was? It’s incredible!”

Louis grins. He lets the deflection slide because he wants to hear the Lord Byron story, and he’s not disappointed. Byron _was_ an astonishing cad, and the relish and vivaciousness with which Lola tells the story make it that much better. Louis loves her flair for the dramatic, which isn’t often seen in public; it says a lot that Lottie gets to see it.

* * *

He wore standard casual clothing to lunch with Lola and Lottie, but he changed into his suit before leaving Oxford. This time, he did borrow Zayn's maroon suit. Harry had said that he expected a rather fashion-forward party: Gemma's a writer and occasional model, and many of her friends are London artists of one type or another.

Shrugging his jacket on in the car park and inspecting his reflection in the side of the car, Louis thinks he looks rather sharp. If he were going to pick a colourful suit, he probably wouldn't choose purple, but luckily for him, he looks good in just about every colour out there.

The truth is that Louis loves clothes, loves fashion, loves looking his best and knowing that he's put together a fantastic outfit. It's just not a passion he ever got to indulge much. He did have good clothes when he was a teenager, but he was generally trying to look straight and always second-guessing his favourite choices. As for the years since then, single fathers who can barely make ends meet can't go around buying beautiful tailored suits and designer shirts. Where would he have worn them even if he had such a thing?

Just for tonight, though, he can be the fashionable city boy that he'd once longed to be.

He heads inside once he's sure his tie is straight and his buttons are all in order. The venue is a large brick building, clearly some sort of old factory turned trendy “loft” space. Inside, it's mostly open to the roof, but the space overhead is criss-crossed with catwalks that connect balconies running along the edge of the building, a good fifteen feet above the floor. The balconies are lined with fairy lights, giving a bit of a sweet and festive air to the excruciatingly hip atmosphere.

People are milling around, some holding glasses of champagne already. Some of them are dressed quite fantastically – Louis is very glad he's wearing this absurd purple suit. He also thinks he recognizes several of them are legitimately famous people.

Tables are clustered in one side of the room. Across a gulf of empty space, rows of chairs are set up facing a red-painted archway. He finds Harry there, frowning as he carefully adjusts flowers woven through the fretwork of the arch. “Hey, H, look, I'm early,” Louis announces happily as he approaches.

Harry looks up from his task and smiles. “Louis! And early? It's a miracle.” He hugs Louis quickly. “Why don't you take a seat and I'll come join you in a moment? I put my hat on that seat there. You can take the one next to it.”

“Come sit with me. That looks perfection already. Stop fussing and entertain me.”

“Oh, so that's the kind of date you're going to be.”

“Yep. Bring me a glass of champagne, too. You invited me so I expect you to bring me drinks.” Louis scrambles to his seat and takes it, grinning expectantly at Harry.

“What have I brought upon myself,” Harry mutters, but he's smiling as he walks off toward the bar.

* * *

Hours later, the two of them are sitting on a catwalk, legs dangling down between the metal posts along the edge, watching the party below. Louis has loosened his tie and taken off his jacket; Harry still has his jacket on, but his shirt is unbuttoned nearly to his navel. “You look like a rock star,” Louis giggles. Lifting one of Harry's curls, he observes, “The shirt, your hair... I didn't even know they made skinny suit trousers.”

“What's 'they'? A good tailor can make anything,” Harry shrugs.

“Oh ho, fancy man with a tailor, are we.”

Harry just laughs and rolls his eyes.

“Okay, so don't lie to me, you were totally talking to Ed Sheeran like you're old friends or summat,” Louis says suddenly.

“Oh, well.” Harry looks out over the crowd. “We are old friends.”

Louis raises his eyebrows. “You're old friends with Ed Sheeran.”

“Yeah, it's not that weird, we were friends when I lived in London. He was just singing at pubs back then, same as me, that's how we met.” He quirks a smile, looking down. “We wrote songs together sometimes. I've got a writing credit on his first album, did you know?”

“You—fucking what?” Louis explains. “You helped write on Ed Sheeran's breakout record and you're not bragging about it all the time?”

“It's only one song, and I just co-wrote it with him,” Harry shrugs.

“Oh my god. I'm going to go home and look at the liner notes immediately. Huh.” Louis sips his drink and stares down at Ed below them. “Wait, you sing? And write songs? I mean I've heard you sing along to the radio but I didn't realize you, like, _sang_.”

“I don't anymore,” Harry says in a clipped voice.

“Why not?”

“Not good at it.” Harry shrugs, looking away.

“You must've been pretty good if you were jamming and writing with Ed.”

“Not good enough to get a record deal, so who cares?” Harry stands suddenly. Louis thinks that Harry's going to just walk away – that he's offended Harry that much – but Harry stops and holds out a hand to him. “Want to dance?”

“You're changing the subject,” Louis observes as Harry pulls him to his feet.

“Yeah. Want to dance?”

“Yeah.”

* * *

“They're kicking us _out_?”

“Party's over, Lou, they're kicking everyone out so they can clean up.”

“But I've still got some of my drink left.”

“I don't think you need that anymore.” Harry plucks the drink from his hand. “You know you can't drive home tonight, right?”

Louis sighs and lets his head loll against Harry's shoulder. “I know. Take my keys if you must. I've got blankets in the boot, just stick me in the back seat.”

“I'm not leaving you in your car!” Harry sounds scandalized. He puts a hand on the small of Louis' back, guiding him gently out the door. “Look, I've got a hotel room just up the road. Everyone in the wedding party's staying there.”

“So chivalrous.” Louis throws an arm around Harry's shoulders. It's a little awkward, since Harry is a few inches taller. “Sorry for drinking so much. I meant to be able to drive home tonight...”

“It's okay.” Harry's hand slides from the small of Louis' back around to his waist – not pulling him in to Harry's body, just resting there. “I don't mind.”

They manage to walk a block like that before Louis laughs and drops his arm. “I'm going to dislocate my shoulder like that. Why d'you have to be so bloody tall anyway.”

“You should've eaten your fruit and veg when you were a kid like I did.”

“I can't believe this victim blaming,” Louis mutters.

The hotel room only has one bed. Of-bloody-course. “I'm not _that_ easy, Styles, Jesus,” Louis protests.

“Don't be a dick about it,” Harry grumbles. “We can put the bolster between us to protect your honour if you're going to be like that.”

“What the hell's a bolster?” Louis flinches, catching a cylindrical pillow that Harry throws at him. He glares at it and drops it unceremoniously on the floor. “I hate it when they put these bullshit useless pillows all over the place. No thanks.”

Harry seemed genuinely irritated a moment ago, but now he's giggling and falling helplessly onto the bed. “You're so mad about pillows! Your voice got so squeaky! Like a little...” He paws vaguely at the air.

“I have no idea what you're talking about,” Louis laughs. He starts stripping off his clothes; he's suddenly thankful that he's got an undershirt on, and boxers instead of pants. He's got to have a bit of modesty. Leave a bit of mystery for now. He crawls under the covers and lays his head on the pillow.

Harry shimmies his way up the bed and rolls onto his side so that he's face-to-face with Louis. “Hi,” he says, eyes searching Louis' face. He looks like an angel with his red lips and his curls spilling across the pillow, beautiful though mussed from a night of drinking and dancing.

“You're gorgeous,” Louis blurts. “Oops. Didn't mean to say that.”

Harry grins. “I don't mind.”

“Good, you shouldn't. But I'm going to go to sleep now before I embarrass meself.” Louis pulls the sheet up over his head.

Harry giggles. “Don't steal the blankets. This is _my_ bed, you know.”

Louis feels the bed shift – Harry's getting up, probably to brush his teeth or something responsible like that. Once he hears the door to the bathroom shut, Louis quickly rolls himself into a cosy blanket burrito, and promptly falls asleep.

* * *

He wakes up with a groan when a cruel ray of sunlight lights up his face. Scrunching his eyes shut, he rolls to bury his face in the pillow.

He hopes to immediately fall back to sleep, but as he lays there breathing in the chemical-clean scent of the hotel pillow, he becomes aware that he is very sweaty. Disgustingly sweaty. Probably because he's still wrapped up in a thick cocoon of blankets.

“Oh come _on_ ,” he exclaims, wriggling out of the blankets. Harry's next to him, stretched out on the bed and wrapped up in... “Is that my sleeping bag?!”

Harry squints up at him, his face half-obscured by a wild halo of hair. “You took the blankets,” he mumbles.

“You were supposed to take them _back_ , not go out on a sad journey in the cold to my car! If you were going to be that much of a martyr you could have at least asked the front desk for extra blankets.”

“Would've been more work for them,” Harry murmurs as his eyes fall shut again. “Not nice...”

“Oh my god, you are _too_ nice, why are you even,” Louis mutters, angrily pulling his trousers on. Harry rolls over, snuffling drowsily.

It's not even eight in the morning, he realizes as he slouches down the stairs. Why is he awake? Why is he making himself suffer like this?

He hadn't really paid attention to their surroundings when he arrived yesterday. He'd thought it was a weird industrial nowhere, but actually it's a bit up-and-coming, which means that on one street he has to skirt around what he's pretty sure is a drug deal, but two blocks over he finds an extremely hipster doughnut shop. It's perfect. All the doughnuts are extremely weird. Harry will love them.

His favourite curly-haired weirdo is still slumbering when Louis returns. He sets down the coffees and considers Harry. He's laying on his back now, which gives Louis an excellent idea.

He snaps a picture between each doughnut, just in case. He gets up to four stacked on Harry's face before the sleeping man startles awake – fortunately just knocking the doughnuts onto the bed and not onto the floor. “Surprise!” Louis crows, clapping his hands.

“Huh?” Harry licks a flake of glaze from his lip. “Why are there doughnuts in the bed?”

“Because I brought you doughnuts!” Louis yells happily.

“But...” Harry frowns at the doughnuts scattered across the sheets. “Why are they in bed with me?”

“They're trying to seduce you. Look, this one is lavender, mint, and tarragon.”

“That sounds weird.”

“Exactly. I got coffee too. Rise and shine, sleepyhead.”

“Oh, coffee,” Harry moans. He sits up, sleeping bag sliding down from his naked chest, and makes grabby hands. “Gimme.”

Louis passes him one of the cups. Their fingers brush, and he's seized with a powerful impulse to kiss Harry, just a peck on the lips as he completes his coffee delivery. He manages to restrain himself. Clearing his throat, he plucks a doughnut from the bed and bites into it just to have something to do. After washing it down with some coffee, he manages to ask, “So what's on your agenda today? Any more family duties?”

Harry nibbles thoughtfully at the strange herbal doughnut. “Yeah, I think I'm supposed to help sort the leftover decorations and maybe help transport some things.”

“Do you need help?”

“Nah. Thanks, but I think we've got it, yeah. Just boring stuff and family bickering to deal with, probably.” Harry smiles fondly. Despite his words, he doesn't seem very put out about it.

“Right, well, I guess I should head home soon, then. Change into some clothes that aren't my suit and all that.” It feels odd to be lounging in a hotel room eating doughnuts after a probably-a-first-date that had involved a wedding and sleeping in the same bed, but no physical contact besides a bit of hugging and leaning on one another. None of it has been bad, but it's all been very far from any standard first date procedure that he's aware of, and he needs to process it all.

“Ah, yeah, makes sense. What's that one?”

“Lemon poppy-seed with... it might be chocolate pudding inside?”

“Oh, weird,” Harry exclaims happily.

Louis looks around the room, but there's not much for him to gather. His wallet and phone are in his pocket, and his keys are quickly found on a nightstand. “Erm, just need my sleeping bag then, I suppose?”

“Oh.” Harry's eyes widen, and he looks down at the sleeping bag pooled around his waist. “Uh... why don't I just give it back to you later.”

“Why not just give it back to me now?” Louis asks slowly.

“Be-cause... Just because,” Harry drawls, looking shifty.

“Oh my god, are you naked? Have you been rubbing your genitals on my sleeping bag all night?!”

“I was drunk and you stole my blankets!” Harry cries. “Look, I'll wash it before I give it back. I promise.”

“You'd better,” Louis sniffs. “Well, I'll just leave you two alone, then. Don't have too much fun with my sleeping bag now, Harold.”

Harry groans. “I forgive you for your meanness because you got me breakfast.”

Louis blows him a kiss, grabs another doughnut, and swans out the door to face the day.

* * *

“So you and Harry finally went on a date. It's my dream come true.” Niall pillows his chin in his hands and sighs happily.

“I can't believe it took this long,” Annie says, shaking her head. “More potatoes?”

“Did you guys just invite me over to dinner so you could gossip about me and Harry?” Louis asks, holding out his plate for another helping of Annie's excellent mash.

“No!” Annie protests.

“Yes, of course,” Niall cuts in. “And Annie made the potatoes just how you like so spill.”

“It's weird because you're friends with Harry too,” Louis argues.

“Best friend privilege, don't worry about it,” Niall says airily.

Louis shakes his head.

“Come on, Lou,” Annie cajoles. “You're dying to talk about it.”

“Am not.”

“You aaaaaare,” Annie sings, smirking.

The two of them stare him down, and it doesn't take long for him to break.

He _is_ dying to talk about it. Plus, he loves telling stories and being the centre of attention. If he exaggerates a bit, gives some of his anecdotes a bit more sparkle than they deserve, his friends don't have to know that.

As he winds down, they keep staring at him expectantly until he's squirming like a criminal under interrogation. “What?”

“So you're telling me this story doesn't end with 'and then we shagged', or at least 'and then we kissed',” Niall says flatly.

“No?” Louis looks at them in confusion.

“Wow.” Annie shakes your head. “You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink... I feel like I finally understand that saying.”

“Don't try to act like you're not that thirsty!” Niall points accusingly at Louis.

“I'm not really thirsty.” Louis gestures at his water glass, confused. “You guys are so weird. It was our first date!”

“It was _you and Harry's_ first date! You've been pining for ages! And you go on a date and you don't even kiss?!”

“What, there's no pining. And I don't want to rush things. What if I mess it all up? Like, we're all friends, it'll be a disaster if I fuck things up with Harry.”

Niall frowns. “Huh. But... you and Harry are so into each other.” He shakes his head. “I don't see what would get messed up.”

“Oh. I get it.” Annie puts a hand on Niall's arm and gives him a significant look. “He's just nervous, honey. It's a big step.”

“I mean, I _am_ planning on asking him out for a second date,” Louis points out.

Niall brightens immediately. “Oh! Good!”

“What're you planning?” Annie asks, leaning forward eagerly.

“Er, well, I hadn't actually literally planned anything, but I intend to.” In the face of their judgemental looks, he says defensively, “It's a lot of pressure, the second date! What do I do? Take him to the cinema? Dinner? Do I need to step it up with something fantastic?”

“Mate, you're seriously overthinking this.” Niall shakes his head. “Do you not realize that Harry's a sure thing?”

“I can't believe I'm marrying you,” Annie mutters. “Louis, don't listen to him. It's lovely that you want to impress him and not take him for granted. But you'll be fine with a nice standard date thing, I'm sure.”

Louis chews pensively on a bite of roast. “Hmm. Maybe.”

* * *

Despite his friends' words, he does feel a lot of pressure to get it right with this second date thing. It's crushing to consider the multitude of possibilities and feel like he has to pick exactly the right one. He barely has time to think up or put together a big elaborate plan, as he's so busy in between supervising the theatre renovation and all his regular jobs. “You need to just take action,” Lola tells him. “You’re so good at spontaneous stuff. Just do anything.” But he feels stuck. It’s like stage fright: he’s paralysed and his brain feels empty.

Harry seems to get more subdued as the week goes on. On Monday he's bubbly and energetic when Louis stops by the bakery; by Friday, his smiles have gotten small and subdued, and he's markedly less talkative than usual. Louis has the sinking feeling that he's screwing it all up by being so worried about screwing it all up, and he doesn't know what to do about it.  


He feels so shit about it that he doesn't even go in to Harry's on Saturday morning. He just eats his cereal and goes straight to the theatre to work on decorating and organizing in the office and the practice rooms. By early afternoon, he's been cooped up in the chilly building for hours and feels oddly restless even though he's been moving and working all day. Once upon a time, he would've stepped outside for a smoke. He's given that up, but sometimes it can be nice just to go outside for a minute anyway.

When he does, he gets a shock: it's snowing. “What the...” He stares at the lightly falling flakes in outrage. It's nearly the end of March. This kind of weather is unacceptable, in his opinion. This is weather for December, for ice skating and hot chocolate and Christmas lights, not for March when the tulips have already started coming up and spring is in the air.

He gasps as an idea hits him. _That could work_. He runs inside, scrambling for his computer. He has some research to do.

* * *

An hour or so later, he bursts into Harry's bakery with snowflakes in his hair. Harry looks up, startled. “You okay there, Lou?”

“Are you busy, Haz?” he asks quickly.

“Uh, yeah, I'm pouring Sarah's tea?”

“I meant in like, a general, cosmic sense. Is Pam here?”

Harry shakes his head. He's wearing a blue scarf like a headband, holding his hair back. “No, Saturday afternoons are usually pretty slow.”

“Can she fill in for you for the end of the day, do you think?”

Harry frowns. “Why? Is something wrong?”

“No, no. Here...” Louis waves Harry away from Sarah's table; he comes along reluctantly. Leaning in and speaking quietly, Louis says, “I had an idea and I wanted to take you out. But I don't know if it'll work out if I wait 'til you're done closing up.”

Harry huffs out a sigh. “You couldn't give me some warning? You could've asked me out days ago instead of running in here like something was on fire.”

Louis shrugs, sliding his hands into his pockets. “I just thought of it.”

Harry considers, pursing his lips. “I can probably get Pam in. Pick me up at three?”

“Okay!” Louis beams. “Dress nice but not too formal. Warm and comfortable.”

Harry takes a deep breath. He doesn't smile, but Louis fancies that his eyes are sparkling happily. “Fine. Off with you, troublemaker, I need to make arrangements.”

When Louis gets back nearly an hour later, he sees Harry waiting by the door. Harry spots Louis' car and steps out into the weak afternoon light. Louis very nearly regrets telling Harry to dress nice because he looks so good that it physically pains Louis. He's ditched the scarf and his hair is swept back from his face, curling around his chin and shoulders. He's wearing a long black wool coat that fits him perfectly in the shoulder and close-cut black trousers, and Louis thinks he spies a black button-up under the coat. Everything is perfectly fitted; Harry looks elegant and, well, delicious is the word that weirdly pops into Louis' mind. The outfit is saved from being funereal by a scarf draped around Harry's neck – a floral pattern in burgundy and gold.

Harry opens the passenger door and slides inside, smiling, eyes fixed on Louis. “Hey. You look great.”

Louis clears his throat. “You don't look half-bad yourself.” His voice actually breaks a little. Mortifying. Harry smiles wider.

“So where are we going?” he asks, bouncing in his seat.

“You'll see.”

“It's a surprise?”

“Yes, Curly.”

Harry squints at him. “Hey, is your car even safe to drive in the snow?”

“Rude,” Louis gasps. “My car is extremely reliable.”

“Wasn't it in the shop like a week ago?” Harry leans forward and starts fiddling with the radio.

“Yeah, and Liam did a great job, she's ship-shape.” Louis pats the dashboard fondly.

“Ooookay. Oh, we've left town. How far are we going?”

“I think it's like a forty minute drive? But maybe it'll be longer. Traffic's moving a little slow with the snow.”

“Hmm.” Harry looks out the window at the snow-dusted landscape. “What weird weather. It's beautiful, though. It's nice just driving and getting to see it in the daylight instead of being in the bakery.”

Louis mentally high-fives himself. Apparently just taking Harry for a drive is a strong start. Brilliant.

Harry starts giggling when they pull into the car park of their destination. “An indoor ice rink?”

“Yeah, the outdoor ones are mostly done for the season. But I thought, you know, snow, ice skating. Oh!” Louis twists and grabs a Thermos from the back seat. “Look, I brought hot chocolate.”

“Oooh. Yum. But you should've told me to bring my ice skates!”

“You have your own skates?” Louis raises an eyebrow. “Sorry, I didn't think of that at all. I always just rent them.”

“I'll make do with the rental ones, it's fine,” Harry reassures him quickly.

Louis steps out of the car and pulls his camel-coloured trench coat over his blue sweater. “Oh, good, I was a little worried I'd overdressed,” Harry says. “I like that we're going posh ice skating. Don't you have a scarf?”

“I thought I did, but... hmm. Not spotting it.” He shrugs. “Shall we?”

The rink isn't too crowded – the snow has surely kept some people inside, and Saturday evening is a strange time to ice skate. Louis was lucky that anything is open at all. They've got disco lights going and thumping music, and almost everyone there is under the age of 15, parents notwithstanding. Harry laughs in delight as he steps onto the ice and takes a few experimental glides. “We're the best dressed people in this rink!” he yells happily.

“Because the rest are children!” Louis laughs, skating up next to him. He looks around at the crowd. “You're not wrong, though, I'll give you that.”

They take a few turns skating slowly around the edge of the rink, getting their bearings. “It’s been ages since I last went ice skating,” Harry muses. “I can’t even remember the last time.”

Louis chuckles, “Yeah, Lola gave up on being a professional figure skater by the time she was twelve or so, and we haven't been ice skating that much since then. She’s been more than me, ‘cause sometimes she goes with Nisha.”

“How is Nisha anyway? I barely saw her during the  Christmas holidays.”

“All right, last I heard. Very busy, medical school you know. Apparently she and some other students started a band doing, like, medical parody songs.”

“That sounds fun,” Harry laughs.

“Her mum doesn't know about the band, so don't say anything! If she asks, Nisha doesn't do anything but study, that's what Lola told me to say.”

“Oh dear...”

On their next turn, Louis decides to see if he can still skate backwards. To his astonishment, he gets it pretty quickly. He takes Harry's hands and leads him giddily around the rink, skating face-to-face instead of side-by-side. “I feel like a proper ice dancer now!”

“Okay, now I want to try,” Harry says. His backwards skate is a bit shakier than Louis' – Louis actually has to catch him once, but he gets going a little more smoothly after some time. They skate forwards and backwards, alternating and testing how quickly they can turn.

“Can you do any jumps or spins or anything?” Harry asks.

“What! Of course I can't.”

“You didn't pick anything up from Lola's lessons?”

“No, not really. Sometimes I napped through those lessons. I might be able to do a little hop...” Louis tries it. He doesn't get more than a few inches off the ice and the landing is decidedly wobbly. “Yeah, no. Not going to break an ankle doing that. What, are you not having enough fun skating in circles?”

“Of course I am,” Harry says quickly. “But...” He gives an experimental hop.

“I'm pretty sure that just hopping in place is in no way how you're supposed to do figure skating jumps.”

“Oh, yeah, they're always already moving when they jump, huh?” Harry starts gliding quickly forward.

Louis skates frantically after him, grabbing his elbow. “Don't – Harry, stop! They have teachers for this kind of thing for a reason.”

“I'm just going to try, Lou. Come on, the worst thing that happens is I fall on my butt and get snow on it.” He smiles sweetly at Louis, his eyes twinkling with mischief.

Who is Louis to say no to someone so beautiful, inside and out? He groans and drops his hand from Harry's arm. “You're an adult, you can do what you want, but for god's sake don't—”

Harry whoops and skates quickly off. Louis glides to the centre of the rink, where others have paused outside of the moving ring of skaters, so that he can watch. Harry rounds the corner, lips pressed together in concentration. He gathers himself up, jumps into the air, and stretches out one leg for the landing. His skate kisses the ice, and for a moment Louis thinks he'll actually stick the landing. Then Harry's ankle teeters inwards and he goes tumbling across the ice, landing on his hip and arm with a pained grunt.

Louis quickly skates over to him while Harry gingerly lowers himself fully onto the ice, snatching up the hand he landed on and holding it across his chest. “Shit, shit, shit,” he's panting as Louis arrives, going down on his knees next to Harry. “Should've listened to you,” Harry says through gritted teeth.

“What hurts? Your arm?”

“Wrist.”

“So your butt's okay? Can you stand? Let's get you off the ice, come on.” Louis gets his feet under him and puts one hand under Harry's armpit, the other around his waist, to help him stand. He guides Harry slowly to the gate. There's a bench a few steps away that they sink down on to. “Let's see that wrist then. Oh, wow, yeah, that's swelling up already. Can you move your hand?”

Harry pulls off his gloves, then gingerly moves his hand around and flexes his fingers. “Yeah, it all works. It hurts a _lot_. But maybe it's not broken? I didn't hear anything, like, snap,” he says doubtfully.

“It's probably just a bad sprain,” Louis reassures him. “But do you want me to take you to A&E? I don't mind.”

“Let's just sit here for a moment and let me see if the pain goes down,” Harry says tensely.

“Sure. Oh, I'll get you some ice to put on it. Concessions has some, I'm sure.” Louis pulls his skates off and just walks in his stocking feet. He comes back a few minutes later with a bag of ice and the vacuum flask of hot chocolate. “Here we are, this'll sort you out,” he announces happily.

“Thank you, Lou,” Harry says in a small voice, draping the bag of ice over his wrist and taking a drink of the hot chocolate. “That's really good. Sorry I've ruined our date.”

“It's not ruined yet. Just a... plot twist.” Louis sips the hot chocolate. “Hey, this is pretty good.”

“Yet?”

“The night is young. Either one of us could still ruin it at this point. Field's wide open.”

“How exciting,” Harry drawls.

“Have you ever broken a bone before?” Louis asks.

“Yeah, once, why? Are you wondering if I'd know if it was broken?” He flexes his wrist gingerly, peeking at it under the ice bag.

Louis rolls his eyes. “I'm making date conversation? Asking the get-to-know-you questions? Keep up, H. So what'd you break?”

“Oh!” Harry brightens. “My toe. Stubbed it.”

Louis watches him expectantly, but that's all Harry says. “Seriously? Harry Styles, the man who takes ten years to tell a knock-knock joke, and that's it, that's your broken toe story? You stubbed it.”

“My storytelling skills are compromised. My wrist hurts.” Harry pouts.

“Do you want me to take you home?” Louis says in a concerned voice. “I'd thought we'd get dinner if you felt up for it, but I can just take you home. We can take a rain check—”

“No, I don't want you to take me home!” Harry cuts in quickly. He frowns, then lifts his arm toward Louis. “Kiss it better.”

“You're ridiculous,” Louis says, and he means to laugh, but it comes out sounding embarrassingly fond instead. He gently cradles Harry's hand and leans forward quickly to place a kiss on Harry's wrist, which is damp and chilled from the ice. “There. Now tell me your stupid toe story.”

Harry's blushing adorably as he tucks his wrist back in amongst the ice. “Well, I stubbed my toe on a chair coming round a corner 'cause I was running away from some of my friends. They were threatening to hold me down and put my pants on me. Which they _did_ while I was writhing in pain on the floor with a broken toe. Can you believe that?”

Louis squints. “Okay, I'm lost... Do you mean they were trying to pants you? Like, take your pants off?”

Harry shakes his head, curls bouncing. He's still blushing. “No. I was always naked around the flat in uni. Sometimes they got annoyed and tried to forcibly clothe me.”

Louis opens his mouth, then closes it, then opens it again. “Okay, yeah, I'm just not coming up with any follow-up questions or comments that feel appropriate here. Let's circle back to this naked thing in, like, a few weeks.”

Harry waggles his eyebrows at Louis, smirking.

“Don't steal my eyebrow thing! That's my thing!” Louis yelps.

“Not anymore.” Harry wiggles his eyebrows a bit more, clearly just to be a shit about it.

“Okay, you seem fine,” Louis declares airily, standing. “Let's get out of here and get some dinner. It's about time for you to take the ice off, anyway. Leave it for half an hour or so and then do another round.”

They choose a place for dinner by the tried-and-true method of looking up reviews online, bickering about what sounds better, picking a place, going there to find that the wait for a table is two hours long, and driving to the next choice where the wait is only ten minutes. It's nice, even when Harry's wrist is rested on a fresh bag of ice on the table. Harry tells dumb jokes and muses about the ethics of indoor ice rinks in summertime, and they talk about their businesses and the townspeople and the latest news from the next town over, and it's all pretty normal, and that's lovely. He likes normal with Harry. He likes some parts of this new normal a lot. He likes it when Harry loses his train of thought and just stares for a minute before saying something like, “Your eyes are really blue.” He likes gently stroking Harry's injured arm, feeling bold and brave when he brushes another kiss onto the injured joint.

The drive home down the winding country lanes is slow, as a bit of snow has stuck to the road and it's still falling, albeit lightly.

They don't kiss good-bye, still. Louis thinks about it, has thought about it a _lot_ tonight with Harry's cold-reddened lips so close to him for hours, but – he's not sure he's ready to cross that bridge yet. Harry doesn't try to initiate one, so maybe he feels the same. Instead, they hug good-bye outside Harry's place with the snow falling around them. He presses in close and leans his head against Harry's shoulder, hugging tightly around Harry's waist. Harry's embrace is lighter on account of his injury, but not hesitant. “Thanks for tonight,” Harry murmurs. “It was perfect.”

“Perfect? You nearly broke your wrist,” Louis laughs.

Harry laughs too, his body shaking against Louis'. “Even so.”

They pull back, and say quiet good-nights. Just before Louis can step back, Harry leans forward quickly and kisses Louis on the cheek. Louis drives home with a stomach full of butterflies and thinks, _It was perfect._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title based on Gilmore Girls episode title "The Hobbit, the Sofa, and Digger Stiles", which is a title that is just _begging_ to have "Harry Styles" put into it. (There's usually no correlation with the actual episode contents; I just found the title suitable.)


	11. Episode 11: Ronald Gilmore’s Big Night Out

* * *

  **APRIL 2016**

* * *

 

Louis' brilliant plan called for him to be out of the house around 4 AM, which, he realizes now, makes it an absolutely horrible, incredibly stupid plan. Why would anyone be awake at this hour? It's genuinely inhumane.

The situation is made worse by the fact that part of the roof in the theatre started leaking yesterday evening as they were finishing up the day's music lessons. He and Niall had spent hours badgering the builders to come back, then placing buckets and trying to tape up plastic sheeting. It had been somewhat ineffective and frustrating. He'd been too annoyed to sleep, so he ate half a pint of ice cream in front of the telly and eventually just fell asleep on the couch in what he figured he'd wear in the morning.

Now he looks a right mess. His trackies and sweatshirt are rumpled, his hair is a mess, and his face is slightly puffy with a red line across the cheek where he was sleeping on the seam of a cushion.

Well, he doesn't need to be pretty for this. Harry's seen him worse. Anyway, the man might as well know what he's in for. Louis pulls a beanie on over his hair, grabs the bags he'd left in the foyer, and hops in the car. Action time.

When he gets to the bakery, it's mostly dark, but the kitchen lights are on. He circles around the back to the little attached house. He knows that the back door of the house is close to the big bakery kitchen so it seems like the wiser place to knock.

He has to knock for a while, though. Actually, he knocks for so long that he starts to worry about waking the neighbours. He's pulling out his phone to just call Harry when the back door finally opens – just a crack at first, Harry's pale face looking out suspiciously. He opens it wider once he spots Louis, looking at him in astonishment. “Lou? What are you doing?”

“It's April Fool's Day and we have work to do.” Yawning, Louis steps into the warm little room and drops the bags. “Are you in the middle of something? Spare a few minutes?”

Harry lifts his hands to show that they're covered in flour and bits of dough. “I need to finish the kneading. After that the dough rises for a while so I can step away. Just give me, like, five minutes?”

“Okay. Can I come watch?”

“Sure,” Harry shrugs. “Just don't touch the counters or anything, so I know they're clean. Not calling you dirty, it's just a food safety thing.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Pot of coffee over there.” Harry waves toward the corner of the kitchen and leaves Louis to serve himself while he gets back to his dough.

Louis pours himself a cup of coffee and looks around curiously while he sips it. He and Harry have been friends for many years now, but he's almost never seen Harry in baking mode. That's because the bulk of the baking happens in these hideous, dark morning hours, and there's nothing about mixing batter or shaping pastries that's interesting enough to get Louis out of bed this early.

There's a huge stand-mixer whirring away, audible over the Fleetwood Mac track playing from somewhere in the background. It's like a counter-top Kitchen Aid, except massively scaled up. It sits on the floor but the top of the machine would come up to Louis' chest, probably. The bowl is enormous. It's full of dough being whirled away by something that looks like the outline of a big paddle. On a large, flour-covered counter, Harry's hand-kneading a pile of dough which is quite a bit smaller than what's in the stand mixer but still looks like an awful lot to Louis' eye.

“How come some of it's in the machine but some you're doing on the counter?” Louis asks.

Harry chuckles. “Well, it's funny you should ask,” he says slowly. “I tell people that I hand-knead the rye to give it a more traditional texture. But the truth is that I just like doing it. Kneading bread is fun. Sort of meditative, you know? Satisfying. For a while I did all the bread in the mixer and it tasted just as good but I got bored just waiting around for the machine.”

“You're so weird,” Louis laughs softly.

Harry picks up his arms and clenches his fists, flexing the ropey muscles in his forearms. “Kneading is great for this, too. Keeps the arms strong. ”

Louis' breath catches. He clears his throat and tries to be cool. “Are you showing off your muscles? How can you flirt at this hour?”

Harry winks at him. “I've seen you staring at my arms. Don't act like you don't like it.”

“What do I say to that? Don't do this to me, Haz. I can't be held responsible for what comes out of my mouth when it's four in the bloody morning and you're flaunting your whole...” Louis gestures vaguely at Harry, “... _everything_ at me.”

“My whole everything, huh...” Harry hums, carrying on with his kneading. “Yeah, this is about done. See how it's not really sticky anymore?”

“Uh, sure, whatever you say.”

Harry puts his rye dough into a large bowl and covers it with cling film. The now-finished dough in the stand mixer gets covered up, too. “Okay, that's got to rest. I'd usually start on some of the cakes at this point. Oh, I guess I didn't even... What are you here for, anyway?”

“Just came to ogle your arms while you knead,” Louis says evenly, looking up at Harry through his eyelashes as he bends his head to drink his coffee. He's been told that he has excellent eyelashes – by Harry, actually. Harry's eyes darken and something changes subtly in his posture. Louis smirks. “No, actually. So you remember how you said we should dress up that Ronald Gilmore statue when it went up?”

Harry tilts his head to the side. “Not really. That sounds more like something you would say.”

“No, you totally suggested it. Anyway, the statue went up a few days ago, so...” Louis walks back into the living room to the bags he'd left there. “Check this out. I got all the costume shit I could find around the house.”

“Oooh,” Harry breathes, eyes widening in delight. “Oh my god. We're going to dress up the statue?”

“Hell yes. Come on, let's decide what to use!”

Ten minutes later, it looks like a fancy dress shop has exploded all over Harry's house, and they've got a pretty good selection. They're going for fab and blingy. There's a wig made mainly of tinsel, a pink-and-purple feather boa, and a skirt covered in sequins. “I think we'd have to cut the skirt and safety-pin it on, though,” Harry frowns. “'Cuz of how the statue has his arms out? We can't get it over his head, you know? So are you okay with destroying the skirt?”

Louis nods. “It's for a good cause. Fetch the supplies. Oh, what colour silly string? I got like five different ones.”

Harry gasps. “Oh, Simon hates silly string! You can't even buy that in Gilmore's...”

“Yes, I did drive twenty minutes to buy silly string. Which colour?”

“Oh gosh. I want to say pink to go with the boa, but green would clash and be so ugly that I think we have to choose that.”

“Brilliant.”

They soon creep out of Harry's, giggling and shushing one another. It doesn't take a minute to get there; the statue really is terribly close. “Oh my god, it's so ugly,” Louis says reverently.

“The proportions are really weird...” Harry muses.

“Obviously they tried to make it like a more handsome version of Simon, right? But like, the shoulders and arms are just way too big. And what's even happening with his face? It's creepy. It's that, whatsit, uncanny valley thing.”

Harry hops up onto the pedestal and reaches up to place the wig. “Good lord, why'd he make this thing so large,” he hisses. “Okay, hand me the boa.”

“Help me up, I'll put the skirt on.”

Harry grins and holds out his hand. The pedestal's not even two feet high – Louis doesn't need any help getting up, but it's fun to take Harry's hand and they both know it. He stands close, and their hips brush as Harry reaches up to wrap the feather boa around while Louis bends slightly to deal with the safety pins on the skirt.

“Just draped around the neck, or should I throw one end over his shoulder?” Harry wonders, surveying the boa.

“Toss it over, looks jaunty,” Louis says decisively. He reaches up and aims the silly string right at Simon-as-Ronald Gilmore's face.

“He's going to be so angry,” Harry giggles, accepting the silly string and spraying it down the statue's back, making sure there's a nice bit draped across the thing's rear end. “Okay, let's get out of here before, before the fuzz catches us!”

“The fuzz,” Louis giggles helplessly as they run the short distance back to Harry's house. “We're hardened criminals, we are.”

Harry leans back against the wall, laughing until tears start in his eyes. “Oh my god, I have a front row seat to Simon seeing this morning, I can't wait.”

“What time does he get in in the mornings? I kind of want to watch.”

“Oh, usually about 7:15?”

“Hmm.” Louis considers. “I'd kind of thought I'd be back asleep at that time, I don't have to be at the school until half ten. Might be worth seeing though...”

“On the other hand, he's definitely going to know it was you, and if you're within throttling distance, it could be dangerous.”

“True. I mean, wait, hey! It could be any of the town hoodlums!”

“The town hoodlums?” Harry raises his eyebrows. “You literally are the town hoodlum.”

Louis pouts. “Am not.”

After a pause, Harry asks, “Why are we doing this at four in the morning, anyway, and not your normal trouble-making hours?”

Louis frowns. “You're asleep during my 'normal trouble-making' hours because you go to bed so early.”

“Yeah, but, you're normally asleep at this hour.”

“But you're not...”

Harry smiles slowly, softly. “So you just woke up before four in the morning so you wouldn't inconvenience me. It didn't even occur to you to wake me up?”

“No...?” Louis looks at him in confusion as Harry steps closer.

“You're really nice, Louis,” Harry says, bringing a hand up to Louis' jaw. The words are simple, almost banal, except for the tone of deep, admiring sincerity with which Harry says them. There's a powerful burst of happiness in Louis' chest, a burning in his heart. Harry brings his head down slowly and holds loosely – time and space for Louis to move away, but Louis would never, could never want to step back from this, because this is the moment when Harry kisses him.

Louis' arms immediately come up around Harry, a hand gripping the loose jumper. The kiss is sweet and gentle, Harry's lips relaxed and soft, and Louis feels like he's on fire because he's finally kissing Harry, he has his arms around Harry and his mouth moving against Harry's, and it's not like what he'd imagined, it's better, the best thing he's ever felt.

Harry's arm sneaks around Louis' waist and pulls the smaller man in snug against him. Louis' gasp lets him deepen the kiss. There's a bit of tongue now, and Louis is clinging to Harry like he'll fly away if he doesn't hold tight.

After a few minutes, Harry pulls back, leaning his forehead against Louis' and giggling. “I have to get back to my baking,” he whispers, like it's a secret.

Louis blinks, dazed. “I have a counter-offer, which is that we keep kissing.”

Harry dips in quickly for another taste of Louis. “Compelling,” he murmurs against Louis' mouth. “Your arguments are very persuasive... Oh,” he sighs as Louis turns his head and kisses along Harry's jaw, lips brushing against a hint of rough stubble. “But I really do have to...” he steps back slowly.

Louis smiles ruefully. “I suppose you do.”

“Yep. Got a business to run, you know.”

“Uh-huh.” Louis looks down at Harry's hands, which are still resting on Louis' hips. “Seems like it.”

“Yep.” Harry squeezes lightly.

They stare at each other for a long moment. Louis starts giggling. “So I think you want me to go but you don't want to just kick me out.”

Harry grimaces. “I mean...”

“You kissed me and now you want me to go. I never thought you were the use 'em and lose 'em type, Styles,” Louis grins.

“No, no!” Harry protests wildly. “I didn't mean—but I just have to—”

“Calm down, Haz.” Louis steps up into Harry's space and kisses him on the mouth again. “I get it. And I do really want to go back to sleep. I'm just messing with you.”

Harry sighs, looking relieved. “I _am_ sorry...”

“I'll make you a deal. I'm going to leave me fancy dress stuff all over your living room and _you_ can put it back on those bags, because I'm knackered and I'm going to piss off and let you finish your baking. Okay?”

“That's fair,” Harry smiles.

“And you're going to take pictures of Simon going apoplectic when he sees the statue.”

“Of course.”

“Okay.” Louis hesitates, then stretches back up for one last, lingering kiss. “Okay. Gonna go now. Text me later.”

“Yeah.” Harry watches him with a dopey grin until the door closes behind Louis.

* * *

On his way to the school later that morning, Louis is glued to his phone as he walks, trying not to laugh too loudly as he scrolls through the pictures Harry has sent. The statue in the morning light, passers-by laughing and pointing, Simon stomping over red-faced, Simon yelling at random people and pointing angrily at the statue, Simon angrily ripping off the skirt, Simon sprawled on the grass after he slips off the pedestal while stretching to grab the wig... It's a magnificent collection of images.

Simon will be overcharging him for his groceries at the market for weeks. Worth it.

After he wipes the tears from his eyes and texts thanks and a generous smattering of laughing emoji to Harry, he thumbs open the rest of his contacts to text Niall.

 **Louis to Niall, 10:05 AM**  
_Gotta talk to you asap !!! GOOD emergency. When r u free? Lunch ???_

 **Niall to Louis, 10:10 AM**  
_?? !! ?? i've got a shift at the hardware store today, but I have a lunch break at 1, meet me at the sandwich shop over there?_

 **Louis to Niall, 10:11 AM**  
_affirmative_

“So did you bang?” Niall asks as he slides into the booth, immediately taking a huge bite of his sandwich.

“Not so loud, Jesus,” Louis hisses. Looking around furtively, he adds, “And no. But we did kiss. Stop staring at me so judgementally, we've been over this.” He sinks back against the seat and pouts. “Why must you steal my thunder like that, Niall? I was really excited about the kiss. Kisses. They were great.”

“Oh my gosh, are you like fifteen,” Niall laughs, putting his chin in his hands mockingly. “So excited about kissing the cute boy!”

Louis picks up his sandwich and walks out.

He actually gets a good distance down the block before Niall comes running up behind him. “Did you seriously just leave?!”

“Yes, obviously,” Louis snaps.

“Lou, it was just banter—”

“Well, I didn't call you for banter!” Louis cries, throwing up his arms and nearly flinging his sandwich into the road. He quickly reins it in and pulls in his lunch protectively. “I _am_ really happy about this, Niall, this isn't about getting a leg over, this is something... special, and I know that sounds lame but come on!”

“Aw, mate, I'm sorry,” Niall says, throwing an arm around Louis' tense shoulders. “I didn't mean to be a dick about it. Okay, tell us all about this smooch then.”

Louis takes a bite of his sandwich and sulks.

“Looooouuuu.”

“Whatever.”

“Looooouuu. Come on. Good kiss? Great kiss? Was it romantic?”

Louis sighs. He doesn't really want to get into it now. _He said I was nice and then he kissed me. We were both wearing jumpers and beanies and it wasn't quite five AM. It was the best thing ever._ It sounds stupid. It _wasn't_ , nothing about it felt stupid to him, but he's not quite sure how to communicate how magical it actually was. “It was really great, whatever,” he mumbles, and takes another aggressive bite of his sandwich. “Did you see the statue this morning?”

“Oh, yeah,” Niall grins. “I recognized that wig. Well done, it looked ridiculous. I think Simon's cleared it all way already but it was good while it lasted.”

“We need to plan for sometime when he's out of town,” Louis realizes.

“Oh, man, definitely! I'll let you know if I hear something.” Niall pauses. “So... that's all I get, huh?”

“For now,” Louis says flatly. “Are you free tonight after lessons to start looking into ordering stock for the shop? Some of the stuff will take a while so we need to think about putting in an order soon.”

Niall sighs. “Yeah, man. You can come over to mine and we'll look at the catalogues or whatever.”

“All right, cool. I should get back to it... Later.” He offers his fist to Niall to pound, a conciliatory gesture, and they part ways.

* * *

“Hey, so Craig called me, you know, that guy with that jazz band? He wants to rent a room and offer lessons for brass instruments!” Niall tells Louis excitedly, handing over a beer bottle.

“Sick!” Louis exclaims. “We better get the guys to finish up the other two practice rooms soon.”

Niall nods. “Yeah, we could maybe take someone off working on the stage for a couple days for that?”

“Yeah. I want that stage so bad... but getting revenue in, that's gotta be the priority,” Louis nods. “Actually having money to stock the shop will, y'know, help.”

“You don't say,” Niall answers dryly. “Okay, so you talked to some suppliers? What've we got?”

“Yeah. So the list is I have from when we went on that music-supply-store scouting trip, and here's the first company's website...”

They're pulling frozen pizzas out of the oven an hour later when Niall casually mentions, “I asked Zayn to make our website.”

“You – what?” Louis sputters. “You're involving Zayn in our business? Zayn, our most judgemental friend? Also, wait, you realize you're telling me that you've asked an English teacher to make our website?”

“Whoa, take it down a notch there, Austin,” Niall reprimands.

“You know I hate it when you call me that!”

Niall rolls his eyes. “Get down some plates. Dude, have you ever even seen Zayn's website?”

“Zayn has a website?” Louis asks blankly.

“ _Dude_. Yes. For his art!”

“Oh, yeah...” Louis says vaguely as he puts the pizza slices on plates. “We went to that one incredibly hipster-posh-weirdo art show thing that one time, and he had those, like, comic book things? I didn't know he still did that.”

“You're the worst,” Niall mumbles through a mouthful of pizza as they walk over to the couch. “It's zaynmalik.com, go pull it up.”

Louis blinks in surprise when the page loads. “He made this? Like, are you sure he didn't pay someone else to program it for him? Or use a pre-made template? I've looked into those and there are some nice ones these days.”

“No, idiot, he did this all himself. You think he'd let someone else have 'creative control' over his website?” Niall snickers.

“Good point. Huh. Wow. Erm, but this is a lot, like, slicker and cooler than we need. We're just a village theatre and music school.”

“I'm sure he can tone it down,” Niall says soothingly. “He teaches at a normal school, he knows what normal person stuff looks like. And his graphic design skills are absolutely sick, it's gonna look so good. And, _and_ , it's gonna look great and he's charging us way below market rate.”

“But if we just used a SquareSpace template it would cost, like, _no_ money.”

Niall gives him a piercing look. “Don't you want a nice website?”

Louis sighs, sagging against the sofa. “Yeah, yeah. But our logo can _not_ look like graffiti. Can you imagine what Simon would say?! We'd be on trial for corrupting the youth in a second...”

* * *

“Movie night, movie night,” Louis sings happily, arranging dishes of biscuits and crisps on the coffee table.

“Is this dinner?” Harry asks in horror.

“Yeah...?” Louis says slowly, as if baffled by the question. Harry's face falls and Louis bursts out laughing. “No, I'm getting some curry delivered, too.”

“Ah...” Harry looks only slightly mollified.

“Do you not love eating junk food and watching movies?”

“Ah...” Harry shrugs and slowly answers, “It's all right, I guess? I mean, I'm not sure exactly when I last watched a movie, but...”

Louis stares. “Do you not have electricity in your home? Have you been banned from the cinema for some reason?”

“Just don't watch a lot of movies,” Harry says, raking his hair back from his face with one hand.

Louis had been feeling a bit judged – he knows he watches a bit too much telly, all right? But Harry playing with his hair strikes Louis as a nervous gesture, and he suddenly realizes that Harry might feel a bit uncomfortable that he's watched so _little_ in comparison.

“Aw,” Louis coos, stepping up into Harry's personal space and wrapping his arms around the taller man's waist. Harry's eyebrows go up in surprise, but he smiles, looking a bit pleased. “I get to educate you about films. I am a teacher, you know, at heart.” He pulls one hand back to press it to his heart, looking up at Harry earnestly.

Harry giggles and pecks a kiss onto Louis' lips. “Lucky me, then.”

Louis beams and darts away, picking up a stack of DVDs. “Here's what I had in mind for tonight. Some old favourites. Pick one?”

“I like the colours on this box,” Harry says, pointing to one in the middle.

“Do you also pick your wine based on the label?” Louis chuckles, fishing out the chosen film.

“Only when it's a really good label,” Harry answers seriously.

They end up missing a crucial plot point because they spent a quarter of an hour making out. Their mouths taste unromantically of curry and neither cares. Louis tries to explain to Harry what he missed, but Harry insists on being confused and yet won't let him just rewind a bit. “Harry,” Louis says, exasperated, “I'm all for snogging during the movie but we've got to have a strategy here. You don't want me to _not_ kiss you until the movie ends, do you?”

“No!” Harry gasps. “Fine, fine, rewind the damn thing. God, you're harsh.”

“No, we're too close to the end now,” Louis says, nose in the air. Harry groans. “But _next_ time you're going to let me rewind it.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry says dismissively, leaning in and capturing Louis' lips in another searing kiss.

They don't break apart again until the end credits are rolling. Louis is very glad that he's wearing jeans. Well, actually he's cursing the fact that he's wearing jeans because the way they constrict his erection is _not_ fun, but on the other hand he's not pitching a tent in his customary movie-night pyjamas, which was the entire point of wearing uncomfortable pants to movie night. “I should go,” Harry murmurs, inches from Louis with his hand still curled around the back of Louis' neck.

“Already?”

“Yeah. You know how early I have to get up.” They share a soft smile, remembering their April Fool's Day morning.

Louis sighs, standing and helping Harry to his feet. “Sadly, I do. Here, I'll walk you out.”

“Well, wait, just a second. I wanted to ask you.” Harry keeps the hand Louis offered in his, and grabs Louis' other hand, too. “So, we're, like, dating now. Right?”

“Last I checked, yeah,” Louis says, swinging their joined hands cheekily.

Harry smiles, dimple creasing his cheek. “That's good. But I was kind of thinking, we don't need to, like, tell people right away? Not that I'm unhappy or, like, ashamed,” he adds quickly. “Just, like... it's nice that just we know for now? No one else being weird about it or anything for a bit longer...” He trails off, biting his lip.

“Oh, yeah, that's, that's good, yeah,” Louis smiles. “Well, I did tell Niall, so that means Annie knows. Sorry. Uh, and Lola. But that's it. No, I don't mind if it's a little longer before Miss Carrie and Simon and all the other town gossips start in on us.” He laughs, and Harry does too, squeezing his hands.

“Exactly. We'll tell them all soon, yeah? But. Just a little time for us, first.”

* * *

Louis and Harry continue to date semi-secretly. They go on dates, they lay on the couch together and whisper to each other deep into Harry's definition of the late night (10 PM!), they kiss, they hold hands and giggle when nobody's looking. There's something so sweet about it. It's such a happy secret to have.

Louis didn't even realize how much how didn't know about Harry. They've been friends for years; he thought he more or less knew it all. But—of course there are things you talk about on dates that you don't talk about when you're out at the pub with three or four of your mates. He feels a bit silly now, never considering that Harry had hidden depths that he didn't show to the world all the time, just like anyone else.

The fact that Harry is full of surprises is wonderful. Surprises and getting closer to Harry are his current two favourite things.

That doesn't stop him from nearly having a heart attack when Harry pokes his head into the office of the theatre building and says, “I'm here for a singing lesson.”

“Come again?” Louis asks.

Harry rubs the toe of one shoe against the other, standing awkwardly. “I snooped on your schedule and saw that you didn't have anyone else signed up this half-hour. So I thought I'd come see...”

Louis laughs. “Well, we don't exactly take walk-ins. But, ah, for you I think I can make an exception.” He gets up and walks out of the office with Harry. "Er... can I ask why, though?”

“Why what?”

“Why singing lessons? Why with me? Why now?” Louis shrugs, hoping he just sounds curious and not interrogatory.

Harry shrugs, looking away.

Louis unlocks the door to the practice room. “Usually I sit here, and you can have that chair. Or you can stand, a lot of people prefer to stand for singing practice. Well, have a seat for now, anyway.”

It bothers him a bit that Harry hasn't answered his question. He remembers their conversation at Gemma's wedding, though – his music is clearly something Harry's uncomfortable talking about. Louis is afraid that if he presses, Harry will get even more nervous or defensive, or he might just leave.

“All right.” Louis claps his hands together. “Let's talk a little first. What are you hoping to get out of singing lessons? Something specific you want to work on?”

Harry scrubs at his hair, rearranging his curls. “I'm not really sure,” he answers slowly. “They never really told me what I did wrong. I just wasn't good enough. You're the expert... Maybe I should just sing a little and you can give me feedback?”

Louis isn't sure what 'they' Harry is talking about. “We can do that. But don't build me up like I'm some great expert, I'm just a guy who helps kids sing a little better.” He smiles.

“Well, you're the best I've got,” Harry laughs ruefully. He fidgets with the bracelets that he wears sometimes when he isn't baking or working at the cafe. "What should I sing? Or, like, what kind of

song?"

Louis shakes his head. "Whatever you want, Haz. Doesn't matter what it is. Something you like, something you think you sing pretty well, you know?”

“Okay, erm. There's... don't laugh, yeah? I know it's cheesy, like, but this is one I really like to sing.”

“Not going to laugh at you, that's really not the point of this,” Louis says seriously. “Go for it.”

“Okay.” Harry stands and clears his throat, fidgets a little. Then he blows out a heavy sigh, closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and starts to sing:

“ _Isn't she lovely? Isn't she wonderful...”_

When he finishes singing, Louis doesn't say anything. Harry keeps his eyes screwed shut while he heaves out another shuddering sigh. Louis doesn't say anything. After a bit longer, Harry can't stand the suspense anymore and reluctantly opens his eyes to see Louis staring at him with wide, shocked eyes.

“It was shit, wasn't it?” Harry grimaces, slumping on the stool where he sits.

Harry's words seem to startle Louis out of his paralysis. He shakes his head vehemently. “God – no – I just can't believe you've been holding out on me like this!” He throws his hands in the air and exclaims, “I can't believe how many years we could have had you in the Christmas carollers! I can't believe I've never heard you sing with a voice like that.”

A tentative smile starts to spread itself across Harry's face. He looks down at his feet as if to hide his happiness. “Seriously?”

“Oh my god, seriously. We have things we can work on, yeah, your breath control for example, confidence and volume, but,” he raises his eyebrows, “you have a brilliant voice, and you know how to use it.” He flashes a sudden grin. “We're going to have fun. But...”

Harry looks up curiously, one hand raking his hair back from his face. “Hm?”

“I'm not sure that formal lessons like this are the right setting,” Louis muses. “I think you should just come to a jam session with me and Niall. I can still give you feedback and help you work on stuff. But you're far from a beginner. I kind of feel like you're beyond the level of most people I give lessons to, you know? And jamming is way more fun.”

Harry looks at him quizzically. “You and Niall have jam sessions?”

“Yeah! Er, well...” Louis looks up and frowns. “Not since... I don't remember when the last one was, actually. Guess we've been so preoccupied with the new business and everything. Erm... hm. But it's great, yeah, he plays guitar, I play on the piano or sing. Sometimes I do a bit of tambourine.”

“I like a man with a tambourine,” Harry says dreamily.

Louis cracks up. “You're so weird! A man with a tambourine? What are you even saying?” Grinning, he leans forward to grab Harry's hand and pull him in, and then tugs him down for a kiss, because that's a thing he can do now.

Harry kisses back happily, but soon starts grumbling about his back and neck hurting, so Louis pulls Harry down into his lap. Harry lands on him with a laugh and throws his arms around Louis' neck as he leans back in to kiss him more. “Did you refuse to teach me because you wanted to make out in the practice room?” Harry giggles against his lips.

“What an outrageous accusation,” Louis says, going a bit breathless when Harry nibbles on his earlobe. “I'm charging you for this, you know.”

“Mm-hmm,” Harry murmurs, kissing Louis' neck.

“Oh, fuck,” Louis gasps, shivering. He pushes at Harry's chest. “Stop, stop, I have to teach children after this.”

Harry leans back and looks deeply unimpressed. “Seriously? You pull me in for a kiss and then you make me stop once it starts getting good?”

“Yes. Deal with it.”

“Are you really serious about this jam session thing?”

“I really am.”

“How about Sunday, then? I'll have Pam close up so I can be free a little earlier. You don't have lessons on Sunday nights.”

“I'll talk to Niall, but that should work, yeah.” Louis stands and gives Harry another quick kiss. “Now I've got to kick you out before you get me into trouble.”

“I'd like to...” Harry grins wickedly. “Another time, though.”

* * *

“You told him that we have jam sessions?! Oh my _gooooood.”_

Niall is laughing so hard that a tear rolls out of his eye. “I fucking hate you,” Louis says, smashing a pillow into Niall's laughing face.

“You're such a loser,” Niall cackles. “When did we ever have a fuckin' jam session?”

“We have! We totally have!” Louis exclaims.

“Yeah, I played my guitar and you sang or played a little piano with it, but I would never call that a _jam session_ because I'm not a pretentious arsehole,” Niall gasps out between nearly-uncontrollable fits of laughter.

“If you screw this up for me, Horan, I swear to God—”

“You're gonna owe me for this, you're gonna owe me so much.”

* * *

Harry shows up with a plate full of home-made jammie dodgers. “I even made the jam myself,” he declares proudly. “Get it? Jam session?”

Niall groans.

“I hate you so much I'm going to smooch you senseless,” Louis says, taking the plate from Harry along with a quick kiss.

Niall groans louder. “This is the worst jam session ever.”

“You say that, but you haven't even tried my biscuits yet,” Harry pouts.

Niall grimaces and stuffs an apricot-jam one into his mouth. “Oh my god,” he mumbles through a mouthful of biscuit. “Fine, you can stay.”

Harry gives a happy fist-pump. “I haven't done this since uni, so be nice to me.”

“Neither have we,” Niall says.

Louis kicks him in the ankle. “You dirty liar. That doesn't make sense, I didn't even _go_ to uni.”

They do get down to it eventually. It's fun and silly, at first – Harry's self-conscious and giggly, and once Louis gets so distracted watching and listening to Harry that he forgets to play his keyboard, which is awkward for everyone when they notice. After a while, though, they start to gel. They all try singing and get some surprisingly pleasant harmonies going. Louis gives Harry some advice on his breathing and encourages him to sing a bit louder, and then there's one song where they finish up and stop and stare at each other and say, “Hey, that sounded good, actually.”

Later, when Niall's packing up his guitar and they're discussing when they'll have their next session, Harry tentatively asks, “Hey, have you guys ever done any song writing?”

“I've tried out a few guitar melodies, yeah,” Niall answers. “Never got far enough to call it a song, per se, but I've messed about with it, sure.”

“Can't say I really have,” Louis shrugs.

“Hmm.” Harry nods at this, but doesn't say anything else. Louis wants to prod so badly, but firmly tells himself, _wait for it._

He lasts about twenty minutes. He walks Harry back toward the centre of town, and he finds himself asking, “Why are you so timid about yourself doing music? You've got a beautiful voice, and I don't know that much about your songwriting but that one, the one on Ed Sheeran’s album I mean, is quite good so I figure you're good at that too. But you're so shy, like you think you're terrible.”

Harry looks baffled by this question. He crosses his arms. “Louis, I—I tried for years to have a music career. The whole time I lived in London I was trying. Singing, writing, a little guitar, sending demos, doing gigs in shitty pubs and coffee shops. And I never got anywhere but one songwriting credit. Ed's a superstar and I work in a bakery. What am I supposed to think? If I were really good, I would've made it.”

“Aw, H,” Louis says helplessly. He's not sure it's appropriate to wrap Harry up in his arms on the street, but he puts a discreet hand on Harry's upper arm. “The music industry is so brutal. So much of it is luck, innit? How many amazing singers go through, like, X Factor, and then their career totally fizzles and it makes no sense why?”

“You know I don't watch that show,” Harry mumbles, kicking a rock.

Louis laughs. “Okay, the answer is 'loads.' _So_ many talented, hard-working people try so hard to make it big in music and never get anywhere, you know?”

Harry sighs. “I guess.”

“I'm not saying it doesn't suck, but, you know, it also doesn't mean that _you_ suck. You're really good.” They walk on, and a thought strikes Louis. “So why'd you move back to Gilmore's, anyway?”

Harry chuckles. “Lots of reasons. I was broke, and exhausted. Working all these shit jobs to make ends meet, working on my music, it felt like it never stopped and I never got anywhere. Then my mum and Robin decided to move to Cheshire and she obviously gave up on ever doing anything with the store-front she owned. You know my dad used to run a bakery out of here? When he died, my mum closed the place up.” They're arriving at Harry's now, and they stand side-by-side out on the pavement looking at it, shoulders pressed together. “She could never bear to do anything with it, didn't want to run a business, didn't want to sell it. I knew I could succeed at _this_ , you know?” Harry sighs.

“Yeah. Yeah, I see what you mean,” Louis says softly. “And hey.” He turns his head to smile at Harry. “You sure did, huh?”

“I suppose I did.” Harry looks proudly at the building, at his sweet, cosy little cafe.

Louis looks around furtively. It's a bit late, and no one's out in the square at the moment. He slips his hand into Harry's and gives it a squeeze. “You're our superstar town baker.”

Harry laughs, and grins down at him. “I like that.” He looks at Louis for a long moment, and when he speaks again, his voice is low, slow and sweet like molasses. “Do you want to come inside?”

Louis feels abruptly dizzy, like all the blood from his head has rushed to points south. He might be new to dating, but he's pretty sure that he knows what that means, that phrase, in that voice, with those eyes. He wants to jump up and throw his legs around Harry's waist. He carefully clutches his dignity, instead of clutching Harry, and manages to say in a not-too-husky voice, “Yeah, okay.”

“Don't sound so thrilled.” Harry raises an eyebrow at him, walking towards the back door.

“It's called playing it cool, look it up,” Louis says snippily, sliding his hand around Harry's waist and pressing up against his back as Harry unlocks the door. He follows Harry inside, close behind. Once they're in the door, Louis kicks it closed and steps back against it. He loosens his hold on Harry so that he can spin the taller man around, and then grab his arms to pull him close again.

“This is playing it cool?” Harry leans in so close that a stray curl tickles at Louis' cheek.

“I'm the fuckin' coolest,” Louis agrees. “Are you gonna kiss me or what?”

Louis is fairly sure that he can feel a certain hardness stirring where Harry's crotch is pressed against his hip. He might die of happiness. Then Harry's mouth is against his, hot and insistent, and he's honestly not sure how the hell he'll survive being in Harry's bed, but by God is he willing to try. He winds his arms around Harry's neck to pull him close, and arches his back to press his whole body against Harry's. Harry's such a lovely height – just tall enough that he has to tilt his chin up, making him feel romanced and letting him appreciate Harry's size and strength, but not so tall that he's got to get up on his tip-toes or make Harry bend over a lot. The kiss is hot and deep. There's an intent here that there hasn't been while they were snogging lazily on sofas. Mouths open wider, tongues press more firmly, explore more deeply. Louis feels hot all over, and in that moment knows what it means to burn for someone.

After what feels like ages, Harry pulls back, lips red and slick. “Erm, d'you want, like, a drink?”

Louis blinks at him, his sex-maddened brain slow to catch up. “A drink? What? Why?”

“That's what you do when you take someone home, right? You offer them a drink.”

Louis raises his eyebrows. “So, what, we go sit on the sofa and sip a beverage and just, like, pretend that we don't have massive hard-ons right now?”

“I'm trying to be a gentleman!” Harry exclaims wildly. The red flush high across his cheeks is mesmerizing.

Louis slides his hands down from Harry's neck, down his chest and his waist. “You're so beautiful,” he says shakily, “and that's very sweet, but I'd very much like for you to take me to bed now.”

“Oh, thank god,” Harry groans. He captures Louis' lips in a mind-melting kiss, and starts slowly pulling him backwards through the hallway. “I'd very, _very_ much like to take you to bed.”

* * *

Round one is great: quick, dirty, giggly, all hands and mouths, quick movements and snark. They're elated to get their hands on each other, finally, and maybe a bit desperate.

Round two is even better: slower this time, more exploratory, sweet, curious. (Well, it stops being so sweet and then gets quick and dirty again eventually, but it takes longer to get there.)

After more than a few minutes catching their breath, Louis runs his hand up and down Harry's sweaty torso and hopefully says, “Sooo...”

“Don't even say it,” Harry laughs, swatting Louis' hand away from his cock. “Do you know how long it's been for me? Let me recover, Jesus.”

“So... no round three?” Louis pouts. “We could do something else this time...”

Harry laughs more, belly shaking underneath Louis' hand. “No! It's already past my bedtime anyway.”

“But it's barely ten,” Louis says, taken aback.

“Yeah. And I get up at four. Remember?”

Louis shudders.

Harry pulls back a little so he can look at Louis' face. Louis pokes the crease between his brows as Harry says, “I guess you should maybe go?”

Louis feels like the wind has been knocked out of him, suddenly. “You don't want me to stay over...?”

“No!” Harry half-sits up with the vehemence of his statement. He puts a hand on Louis' cheek and locks eyes with him earnestly. “Of course, of course I want you to stay. But you know I'll get up four, and I'll probably wake you, plus—if we don't want people to know yet... I mean, unless you actually get up and go home at four, you'll be leaving my house in the morning when everyone's up and about and, erm, I think it'll be kind of obvious...”

“Oh.” Louis frowns. “But I don't want to go.”

Harry bites his lip. “Well. I mean, that's the situation. It's up to you.”

Louis considers, and then shakes his head as much as he can with Harry's hand pressed to his cheek. “We just slept together for the first time. I want to actually sleep together too. Otherwise it just feels...” He shrugs, not sure how to put it into words.

“Okay, well, don't kill me when my alarm goes off.” Harry kisses him, smiling.

Louis borrows Harry's toothbrush, which is disgusting and he only does it because Harry threatens to kick him out of the house because apparently not brushing his teeth would be even more disgusting. He bounces around Harry's bedroom while Harry brushes his teeth, snooping shamelessly. Harry's bedroom is tidy, surprisingly modern in its design – very little of the fuss and florals that are in the cafe. “It's supposed to be soothing,” Harry explains. “Get rid of distractions that impair sleep. Good feng shui.”

Louis snickers. “Feng shui? You dork.”

Harry eventually wrestles Louis into bed. “You _need_ to calm down, oh my god, I have to sleep, you wanker.”

Louis' extremely mature response to this is to grab Harry's cock – because Harry sleeps starkers, of course he does, and his dick is _right there –_ and offer, “I'll wank _you_ ,” which gets his hand smacked, again.

“I'm seriously going to kick you out if you don't shut the fuck up,” Harry mumbles into his pillow, rolling onto his side and pulling Louis' arm around his waist.

“You're the little spoon, oh my god, it's so cute,” Louis coos.

“Shut uuuppp,” Harry moans. He squeezes Louis' arm, and then pats it gently, so Louis thinks Harry doesn't actually hate him.

Just in case, though, he really, really tries to shut up and not aggravate Harry too much. Eventually, he even falls asleep.

Waking up with a mouthful of curls and his legs tangled up with Harry's is so, so lovely, Sneaking out at 4:30 AM is not.

“I changed my mind, I'll just walk of shame it tomorrow, fuck it if everyone knows,” Louis mumbles, sitting on the edge of the bed.

Harry is silhouetted in the door, apron on and hands on his lips, shoulders shaking as he struggles not to laugh at Louis. “Poor sleepy Lou. You look like a rumpled kitten. Don't make that decision based on just wanting to get back in bed, get out of here.” He walks in and bops Louis gently on the head with a silicone spatula.

“I'm not getting dressed,” Louis whines, standing and staggering against Harry.

“You're naked, love, you have to get dressed.”

“Nooo,” Louis whines.

But of course, in the end, he does get dressed. He'd be a fool to miss the opportunity to nick one of Harry's shirts, after all. When he falls back asleep in his own bed, he's cuddled up with the shirt, the smell of Harry's detergent in his nose. It's not quite as great as curling up with Harry, but knowing that he slept for most of the night in the arms of the most beautiful, lovely man in the world – that's still pretty good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title based on Gilmore Girls episode title "Ted Koppel's Big Night Out". (There's usually no correlation with the actual episode contents; I just found the title suitable.)


	12. Episode 12: I Can See Your Face

* * *

  **MAY 2016**

* * *

 

By the third time that Louis is creeping out of Harry's house before five in the morning, he starts to think that maybe he's over the secret-dating thing. He thinks about it as he sluggishly pulls his clothes on, wonders when to bring it up – not now, when he's slow and stupid, but maybe soon.

He pads downstairs and drifts into the bright, warm, yeast-scented kitchen. Harry looks up from where he's cracking eggs into a bowl and smiles. “You off?”

Louis yawns, and says, “Yeah,” coming over for a kiss.

“Okay. Have a good day. See you in a few hours.” Harry smiles and pecks him chastely on the lips.

_Okay, bye. Love you._

The words flash through Louis' mind, and he freezes. _Shit_. “Did I just say something?”

“Uh, no?” Harry frowns. “Are you sleep-walking?”

“I don't think so,” Louis says. “Okay, yeah, bye.” He gives Harry another quick kiss and turns, walking as quickly as his sleepy feet will allow.

“Are you sure you're okay?” Harry calls.

“Fine! I'll talk to you later!” Louis says, waving, wincing at how high and breathy his voice was.

Instead of going back to sleep at his own house, Louis throws on exercise clothes and runs. Early morning runs are generally not his thing. Why get up early to exercise when you could have a lie-in and exercise later (or not at all)? Right now, though, he feels so anxious that he might vibrate right out of his skin, and he knows from long experience that if he doesn't sweat it out now, this feeling will linger for hours.

He ties on his trainers and heads out the door. It's dawn already – the sun will be over the horizon soon. Horrible, being awake at dawn in summertime, but it is lovely. The world is peaceful and still. Birds begin to sing, but there's no one else in the streets and lanes, just him and the pounding of his feet and his harsh breaths.

It's been some time since he was stressed enough to do this. It happened more often when Lola was younger. Everything had felt so much harder then.  She was a good kid, but she was still a kid. Being a young single dad, struggling to parent, struggling to make ends meet, with no family backing him up, had been hard. He remembers days where he’d gone out on short runs more than once in a day just to straighten his head out. People had thought he was a bit mad, probably. He'd been so skinny that he got free food surprisingly often. People just pressed it into his hands: parents who claimed to have baked too many biscuits, teachers at the school offering him a slice of pizza. That had been nice.

Life is easier now, he thinks as he runs underneath the new spring leaves. Starting a new business is difficult, but it has nothing on what his life was like ten years ago. He's resilient and resourceful, he tells himself – so he can certainly deal with the fact that he's apparently in love with Harry, even though it's completely nuts to be in love with someone you've been dating for less than two months. Everyone knows that. He's sure there's some kind of rule about it.

He tries to tell himself that he's overreacting, that he can't possibly love Harry yet, that he was just confused and thinking weird half-asleep thoughts.

The thing is, Louis is quite good at avoiding problems and uncomfortable truths, but he's not very good at lying to himself. Once he's acknowledged something, he can't just go back to not knowing it.

The sun is high and shining, the birds are making a spectacular racket, by the time Louis gets home. He does feel better. Clearer. It's okay if he's in love with Harry. He doesn't have to _tell_ him yet. It's fine.

He's horrible at biting his tongue. It'll probably slip out. That probably won't be fine. It's surely far too soon and he'll scare Harry off. Probably. But that hasn't happened yet, so _that_ is something from which he can distract himself.

* * *

Preparations are in full swing for the spring production, where the students get to display all the progress they've made this year in their singing or instruments. The week before the pageant, he's got a play to put on with the primary school children. On top of that, stock is starting to arrive and they're arranging the store. They've hired Nisha's younger brother Ravi to help. He can be a bit sullen, and they do catch him leaning against walls and playing with his phone a little too often, but Louis' optimistic that it'll work out; he's a pretty good worker when he's actually working.

He's genuinely too busy to go over to Harry's every night. When he does, he doesn't stay over. Harry doesn't seem to suspect anything – Louis always went home after their evenings together as often as not anyway, because it really is miserable dragging himself home in what feels like the middle of the night, though Harry keeps claiming that it counts as the morning.

It itches under his skin whenever they're together. His heart beats with _I love you_ when Harry smiles and when he laughs and when he pouts about having to watch Louis' stupid telly shows and when he hands Louis his breakfast and when he sings and when he bites his lip while tallying up people's bills and – everything.

It's kind of a lot.

Louis has no one to talk to about it, either. It feels wrong to tell Niall or Liam that he loves Harry before Harry himself knows. Zayn, forget about it. It's a bit much to put on Lola, and she's surely no relationship expert, anyway. (He thinks. There's this one boy she keeps mentioning, but as far as he knows nothing has happened. He shies away from the uncomfortable thought that he has no way to know what's happening in 99% of her life these days, even though they phone each other often.)

There's one option that occurs to him, both a worse and better idea than anyone in town. He makes it almost a week before he gives in and rings his mum.

“Louis!” she answers the phone brightly. “Oh, Ernie, put that down—sorry, love, surprised to hear from you, it's only been a week or two since we spoke last!” Louis winces at that not-so-subtle maternal guilt trip. “How are you doing? Is the shop open yet?”

They pass a few minutes with pleasantries, Louis filling her in on the business situation and Jay filling him in on the family and her plan to split the youngest twins into separate rooms soon. Not much has changed in two weeks so these small updates are out of the way fairly quickly. Jay has to set the phone down for a moment to break up a fight between the twins. When she gets back on the line, she says carefully, “Now, was there a particular reason that you called?”

Louis finds himself pacing. He sighs and gathers up his courage. “Mum, how soon is too soon to be in love, d'you think?”

Jay is silent for a moment. “Would you care to provide a little more context there?”

“Must I?”

“It'd help,” she says evenly.

“Ugh. Okay. You remember my friend Harry? The one with the bakery?”

“Oh, yes. Lovely young man,” Jay says warmly.

“I think so too,” Louis says quietly. “We've, um, been seeing each other. Almost two months now. We've only told a couple people, it's not like you're the last to hear, almost no one knows,” he adds quickly.

“So it's a secret?” Jay sounds confused.

“No!” Louis says vehemently. “I mean, yes, but, not like _that_. It's just... small-town dating. As soon as people know, they'll all talk and have opinions and stuff. I've seen what happens when, like, two people go on a couple dates, but it doesn't work out, and then everyone knows, forever. We just wanted a little time without all that.” He scuffs his bare feet against the floor and quietly admits, “I'm ready to tell people, though, I think.”

“Ahh.” He hears some rustling, and a squawk from one of the kids. “I suppose that makes sense. So... you're in love with him?”

“Maybe?” Louis grimaces. “I think I do, but, that's crazy, right? Who's in love after dating for two months?”

“Well, me with Dan, for example,” Jay laughs. “I mean some people do go crazy-head-over-heels the second they meet someone new and exciting, but I really don't think you're like that, baby.”

Louis chuckles. “Well, not so far, no...”

“But it's not like you just met Harry. How long have you two been friends?”

“Er... ten years or so?”

“Hmm.” He can hear the smile in Jay's voice. “It might be a _tiny bit_ mad to fall in love with someone after knowing them for two months – but loving someone you've known for ten _years..._ I'm just saying, you don't have to be officially dating to start falling for someone.”

“Huh. I... hadn't thought about it like that.”

Jay laughs, but there's something kind about it. “Oh, honey.”

“Don't you think he'll freak out if I tell him, though?”

“Now, that's one I can't answer for you. He seemed very sweet and kind to me, but I don't know him, really. Only you can judge when it's right for that, with the two of you... But, you know, most people don't exactly mind being loved. I'd say, just try to be clear that there's no pressure to reciprocate until he's ready.”

“You give some good advice, Mum.”

“Don't sound so surprised, Louis. I _have_ been married three times.” They both laugh. Jay continues, “Oh, I'm happy for you, honey. It's good to have someone special in your life. You are happy?”

“I'm, um.” Louis coughs. “Really, really happy. Harry's... wonderful.”

“I'm so glad. So, then, when can we expect to have the two of you over for dinner?”

“Oh, no, Mum, I'm driving through a tunnel—”

“Louis, don't you start that with me!” Jay says, indignant. “I can tell you're not driving!”

“Ummm, I'll talk to Harry and get back to you. Gotta go – thanks, Mum, love you, bye!”

He doesn't feel too bad about it. He will get back to her about the dinner thing. Just not now.

He's surprised to realize that he does feel better. Actually, he feels quite good about himself. Talked to mum more often than once in a month: check. Made mum feel good by asking her advice: check. Got some genuinely useful advice: check.

Now he just has to figure out when to tell Harry that he loves him. He doesn't want to just blurt it out in some stupid moment – and he's somewhat prone to saying whatever comes to mind, so he's got to be constantly on guard from now on, until he figures out how (and when) to do it properly.

* * *

They set the grand opening of their shop for the following Saturday. Zayn agrees to design the fliers, which means that he gets sucked into the absolute joy that is trying to get Simon to approve a design.

“No, no, no,” Simon tuts, shaking his head at Zayn's beautiful design. “That font isn't regulation at all.”

Zayn's jaw clenches. “It isn't a font, it's hand-lettered,” he says slowly.

“Well, that's very, erm, charming, but that doesn't exempt it from the rules, Zayn,” Simon says condescendingly. He starts flipping through a huge binder until he gets to a series of pages with differently-styled letters. “ _These_ are the fonts that the town council agreed on as being consistent with the aesthetic and dignity of Gilmore's Hollow.”

“Are you kidding me? My lettering isn't okay but _Papyrus_ is?!” Zayn sputters.

Simon slides a pair of glasses onto his face and peers down at some notes. “'Papyrus is a suitable font for conveying rustic/natural charm with class,'” he reads.

“Oh my god,” Zayn says faintly.

“We'll fix it,” Louis reassures him. He pulls the binder over and peruses it. “How about that one?” he asks Zayn, pointing at the page.

“None of these mass-market fonts convey the uniqueness of your business,” Zayn complains. “This isn't a chain store that can slap up some Arial like anyone else!”

“Choose a bloody font or Simon and his minions will rip down every last flier,” Louis hisses in Zayn's ear. He doesn't want Simon to hear it, doesn't want to acknowledge Simon's power to his face. Judging by the man's smirk, though, Louis' probably failed.

“I guess this one is the closest to my vision,” Zayn says sullenly, jotting down the name of the chosen font.

“Now remember, when you make the changes, you have to bring it back here to get it stamped, and then photocopy it. I'm not going to stamp a whole stack of papers! I'm very busy, you know. My time is valuable,” Simon sniffs.

“Yeah, yeah. Come on, Zayn.” Louis grabs Zayn by the elbow and drags him out of Simon's office.

“How can there be this many rules about fliers?!” Zayn groans.

“Because Simon,” Louis sighs.

They get it done in one more round of revisions, though, in plenty of time for the fliers to go up well in advance of Saturday.

Their grand opening is bustling, probably largely due to the fact that Harry donates several trays of baked goods. Louis had hoped the free guitar picks with their logo would be a hit, and to be fair they do shift quite a lot of them, but the pastries are gone much more quickly. The sales are modest – most of the students have what they need by now, at the end of the school year – but they sell a lot of penny-whistles and reeds and some sheet music, at least. The main purpose of the celebration is for people to know that the music shop exists at all. Customers peek excitedly into the under-construction theatre, and coo over the handful of students performing and providing background music (in exchange for a free lesson, naturally).

They close up at six, and meet Zayn, Liam, and Harry at the pub later in the evening for celebratory pints. That part is lovely – even Zayn is cheerful and far less acerbic than usual. (“Told you so,” Niall whispers smugly to Louis when Zayn gets up to wee. “He complains about the work but he _likes_ being involved.”)

But the celebration Louis likes even better is the next afternoon's. Harry leaves Pam in charge of the bakery once he finishes the morning's baking and takes Louis off for a picnic. Even if he didn't _want_ to tell Harry that he loved him, he would surely have failed when presented with an incredibly handsome man and a beautiful spread of food, prepared by said handsome man, in a flower-scented meadow in the warmth of precious spring sunshine. It's actually impossible for him not to blurt out, “I love you.”

He even remembers to look Harry in the eyes, and not just say it to the food. It's a close call, but he catches himself, manages to turn to Harry and grab his hand first, at least.

It feels like the stupidest thing he's ever done when Harry draws back, eyes wide. He swallows visibly but he doesn't say anything. Louis panics. “I know it's soon, it's too soon, sorry, I don't expect—”

Harry surges forward and kisses him, throwing his arms around Louis' neck. There's so much momentum behind it that Louis almost falls. He catches himself, though, with one arm thrown out behind him.

Kissing is good, he thinks, wrapping his other arm around Harry. Kissing means _I'm happy that you said that_ , that's almost certain, right? He's pretty sure that Harry kissing him doesn't mean _I don't like you that way_ or _whoa slow down there mate_ or _what did you say I'm freaking out now_.

He thinks that Harry's laughing, but suddenly he feels wetness on his cheeks, and he realizes that those little hitching sounds in Harry's throat aren't laughter, and all his happy thoughts stop with a hideous mental record scratch. He thought that kissing meant Harry wasn't freaking out, but no, Harry is definitely freaking the fuck out, isn't he.

Louis pulls back. Harry tries to chase his lips, so Louis stops him with a hand on his chest. “Hey, whoa, Hazza—” He gets enough space between their faces to see that Harry's eyes are wet and reddened. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing's _wrong_ ,” Harry says a thick voice.

“You're crying,” Louis observes. He slides his hand up from Harry's chest to cup his face, thumbing at a tear on Harry's cheek.

“No I'm not,” Harry insists, and buries his face in Louis' neck with a sob.

“Hey, love, it's okay,” Louis says soothingly, rubbing a firm hand up and down Harry's back. Harry's face is hot against his neck and he seems to be mumbling apologies. “Oh, sweetheart. Shh, it's fine, it's all fine,” he murmurs. “I'm sorry if I upset you, love, it's okay.”

“'m not upset,” Harry sniffles.

Louis actually manages to laugh a little at that. “But you're crying,” he points out again.

“Because I'm happy, shut up,” Harry mumbles, and nuzzles Louis' shoulder, hiding his face.

Louis feels deeply confused. Harry is a sensitive bloke, he's known that for a long time. He's seen Harry get unabashedly tearful when he was campaigning raising money for sick kids in third-world countries, or when talking about his father's death. He's seen Harry cry, yes, but only when he was sad, or hurting.

While Louis is trying to put together the puzzle pieces and failing, Harry pulls back to look deeply into Louis' eyes. “Do you really mean it?” he asks seriously.

“Of course I mean it,” Louis says slowly. “I wouldn't say it if I didn't.”

Harry's lower lip trembles, and he bites it, his gaze flicking back and forth between Louis' eyes like he's searching for something.

Louis shrugs helplessly and says, “I know it's, like, weirdly early in our relationship to say it. But I really, really love you, Harry. I realized it, like, a week or two ago, I guess, and, you know, I talk a lot so it was bound to come out. I'll back off, though, like, if you're not ready for that yet. I'm not trying to pressure you.”

Harry's shaking his head slowly. “I don't want you to stop saying it,” he says in a small voice.

“Don't look so shocked, babe,” Louis smiles. “In hindsight... I mean, me _not_ falling for you would've been crazy. You're so wonderful.”

Harry laughs and leans in to kiss him again, slow and deep and sweet. He seems quietly, happily baffled for the rest of their picnic; he keeps losing the thread of the conversation, staring at Louis, or his own hands, or at Louis, or at a tree, or at Louis. It's not at all what Louis expected. He expected freaking out and running away, or simple toleration, or, just maybe, if he were really lucky, a vigorous and joyous reciprocation.

In the end, he wasn't entirely wrong to be hopeful. Harry shakes off his unwonted shyness and is _quite_ vigorous when they get back to his place that evening. They end up skipping dinner to spend the evening in bed, snacking on the remnants of the picnic, long past Harry's usual bedtime.

Louis is snuggled up against Harry's back and just starting to drift off when Harry suddenly spins around in his arms. He half-props himself up on an elbow and urgently says, “Did I not say it back?”

“Why so loud...” Louis groans. “What now?”

“When you said. Um... that you, um, loved me. Did I say it back?”

“Huh?” Louis pats sleepily at Harry's face. “I mean, no, but it's okay. I didn't expect you to, yet.”

“No, no, but I do,” Harry says quickly. He pokes Louis hard in his ribs. “Open your eyes, Lou.”

Louis peels his eyes open and squints at Harry in the dimness. “You...”

Staring at him earnestly, Harry insists, “I love you too. I do.”

Louis smiles softly and strokes at Harry's arm. “You don't have to say it just 'cause I did.”

“No, no, I have for ages, I just thought it was crazy to say it so soon, and then I was so happy that you said it, I forgot I hadn't.”

Louis laughs. He's smiling so hard his cheeks hurt. “You're so adorable,” he grins, and he fists his hand in Harry's hair to tug him down for a scorching kiss.

He starts when he feels Harry's hand on his soft cock. “You need to sleep,” he says against Harry's soft lips.

“Sod sleep.” Harry nips at Louis' lower lip. “Don't care about that right now. Let me make you feel good, Lou.”

How can he say no to that?

* * *

Louis feels bleary and out-of-sorts when he wakes up the next morning. He hasn't heard his alarm go off or Harry getting up, but Harry's side of the bed is cool and it's light out, so it must be well past time for him to go.

He winces as he stands and walks to the bathroom. Last night had been... thorough. And varied. He chuckles to himself when he discovers a few love bites on his collarbone and even on his shoulder.

He pulls on his jeans from last night, and throws on one of Harry's jumpers. He slips his shoes on downstairs and drifts into the kitchen. To his surprise, though, Harry isn't there, and he doesn't see the rising dough or loaves of bread, though it does smell like something sweet is baking. He helps himself to a cup of coffee and goes into the cafe proper to look for Harry.

He does see Harry – pouring a cup of tea for Liam, who looks at Louis and immediately starts laughing uproariously. Naturally, this draws the attention of the dozen or so other patrons of the cafe as well.

“Ooooh, I'm an idiot,” he whispers.

“Erm, morning, Louis,” Harry says, blinking at him. He has deep dark circles under his eyes, and a love bite just under his ear, _oops_ , which is especially visible because Harry has his hair pulled back into a messy bun.

“Your shirt's on inside out,” Louis observes stupidly.

Liam laughs harder. Arsehole. Louis seriously considers telling him to fuck off, but there are kids in the shop.

“Okay, I'm just gonna... yeah...” Louis slowly backs up out of the cafe and lets the door swing shut as he retreats into the kitchen.

He leans back against a counter and mentally composes a very scathing text message for Liam.

Harry follows him into the kitchen shortly. He's biting his lip; the crinkles around his sleepy eyes betray his amusement. “So, that was smooth,” he says, slipping his arms around Louis.

“Yeah,” Louis sighs. “So. I guess we don't have to figure out how to tell everyone?”

Harry laughs, and kisses him.

“Okay?” Louis asks.

“Yeah. I don't mind.” Harry smiles.

“Cool.” Louis tilts his chin up for another kiss.

“I should go back in, I guess. I spilled tea on Liam.”

Louis cackles loudly. “Oh, I love you.”

Harry absolutely beams with his hugest, goofiest smile. “I love you, too. Talk to you later. Go sneak out the back, I'll cover for you.” Harry winks, he actually _winks_ as he backs out of the kitchen. Louis can't even believe how much he loves him.

He rings Lola as soon as he leaves Harry's, mainly because if he's on the phone then he won't have to talk to anyone else he encounters on his way to his house.

She answers with a cheery “good morning” that makes him wince. “How can you be that energetic at this hour?” he moans.

“Are you hungover?” she demands.

“ _Drunk in loooove_ ,” Louis sings.

“If you tell me something about waking up on the kitchen floor, I'm seriously going to hang up and not talk to you for, like, a week.”

Louis laughs. “No, but, everyone knows Harry and I are dating now. We're all public and everything. I reckon we may even make it Facebook-official.”

“Aw, that's great, Dad. Hold on a sec.” He hears her cover the receiver and briefly speak to someone else. “Sorry, I'm walking to class. Hey, why are you calling at this hour, anyway?”

“Er...” Louis scratches his slightly-stubbly chin. “Well, I kind of left Harry's place just now, like, pretty obviously... so... that's why everyone knows.”

Lola is silent for so long that Louis has to check that the call is still connected. “Are you calling me from your walk of shame?” she finally asks.

“No shame here, honey,” he drawls in his campiest voice. “But, yes. You're providing me with cover so I don't have to talk to anyone else.”

“Unbelievable,” Lola mutters.

“I'm home now, though. Oh, what's...” There's an envelope stuck to his door with sellotape, with a note inside. “What the fu... Simon's already left me a strongly-worded letter. How is that even physically possible?! I walked straight here from Harry's! Did he teleport? Did he travel back in time to write this?”

“What?” Lola laughs incredulously. “Oh, this should be fun.”

Louis skims the letter as he steps into the house, gasping dramatically. “He's concerned about two business owners forming a relationship... 'when you break up, families will have to choose between music lessons and bread for their children'... oh, no – 'your lifestyle is of course a personal choice that we all respect, but by flaunting it you're endangering our reputation as a family-friendly town,' I'm going to literally kill him.”

“Don't kill Simon!” Lola says quickly. “He's not worth going to prison for!”

“I can't believe this, the bloody nerve of it!”

“You know no-one else thinks like that, Simon's just full of hot air. Ignore him.”

Louis slumps against the door. “Some people are going to be weird about it, though. Maybe not as obviously as Simon, but...”

“Yeah,” Lola says quietly. “You know, everyone's nice to Sarah and Christina, though. People like you and Harry.”

“Yeah. You're right, of course. But. Shit.” He pinches his nose between his eyes. “I've been so excited about this thing with Haz, I haven't actually stopped to worry about being _out_.”

“ _Don't_ worry, Dad,” Lola says earnestly. “We've got good people in Gilmore's.”

“Thanks, Lo.”

She pauses. “Lecture's about to start. Are you okay? I can stay on the phone if you need me.”

“No, no,” he answers quickly. “I don't mean to keep you from class. Go on, I'm fine, really.”

“Okay. Don't worry. Just think about Harry. See, I bet you're smiling now.”

Louis laughs. “Talk to you later, kiddo. Bye.”

He throws Simon's letter onto the floor. He feels jittery and weird. He suddenly, viscerally remembers being sixteen, so afraid of being gay that he spent a summer getting wasted and having terrible sex with girls. He's different now. The world is different now, too. Very likely, he won't encounter much worse than some weird looks and Simon being a dick, and that's just a normal day.

Right.

He takes a deep breath and walks upstairs to shower before work.

* * *

So, everyone knows. It's fine.

He gets a lot of smirks in those first few days. The teenager behind the cash register at the bookstore accidentally brushes hands with Louis while handing him his change, and flinches away. Louis' actually surprised by how much that saddens him. One of the yummy mummies, picking up her eight-year-old from piano lessons, smirkingly asks him which one of them is the top half of the muffin and which is the bottom half. Which, A, makes absolutely no sense as a metaphor, and is not a thing that anyone has ever said, ever; but also, B, it's a shockingly invasive and thoughtless question. He tells her exactly that, probably in harsher terms than he should, but there's no way he's biting his tongue on this one.

“I can't believe she asked me that,” he fumes later, snuggled up with Harry on the sofa. “And I really can't believe the _way_ she asked that. Like it was a fun question, like, I seriously think she thought I was going to be happy and love to answer that. Like, oh my god, I barely even know you, why would I talk about my sex life with you?! Leaving aside what a gross, heteronormative question that is anyway...”

Harry kisses his hair and his temple, and Louis sags against him with a sigh. Here's the flip side: none of the kids have pulled out of lessons with him, not a one, and most of the townspeople just pat him on the shoulder and tell him how happy they are for him and Harry. Several chuckle and tell him that everyone's seen it coming for years. That's a little obnoxious, but he tries to focus on the positive: most people are happy for them.

And – he has Harry. And every annoyance is worth the while for that. He gets to walk down the street with Harry, hand-in-hand, arm-in-arm. He gets to kiss Harry wherever he wants: at home, in the park, in the car, on the street, and, best of all, right out front of Simon's market so they can see his face darken with disapproval before they trot off, laughing together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title based on Gilmore Girls episode title "Luke Can See Her Face".


	13. Episode 13: Written in the Stars

* * *

  **JUNE 2016**

* * *

 

The end of the school year. _Finally._

He always has mixed feelings about it. On one hand: _Summer_ , obviously the best part of the year, featuring more free time than he knows what to do with. No more classes at the school; he's worked with some summer soccer programs over the years, but not as many kids play in the summer, so that takes up little time. Many kids scale back on their music lessons, too, as their families travel or pack them off to summer camps. On the other hand: Not working means not getting paid. Even though, by June, he's very tired of keeping hordes of screaming primary schoolers under control, he's sad to say good-bye to them because he's sad to say good-bye to a regular paycheck.

This year is even more bittersweet than usual. After he dismisses his last P.E. class, instead of rushing away, he just stands in the school yard, slowly spinning and taking it in. He's done.

Quitting this job means that he's free to run the music shop during the days. He's done the maths and it's the right business move. He's excited about it, honestly. Working in his own shop, in his own business, that's been the dream all along.

It's just... it's weird. This school has been a part of his life for so long, starting when Lola entered school. Now he's leaving it. Not that it's far away – not that he won't see it anymore – but he won't be going here almost every day. At least – he presses a hand to his mouth when it hits him. _At least not until his and Harry's kids are old enough to start school._

Jesus, he needs to calm down. He _just_ told Harry for the first time that he loved him a few weeks ago. It had felt way too early for that ( _no it wasn't_ , a corner of his brain insists) and it's way too early now to be thinking about their future children.

They're going to be great, though.

He shakes his head. _Enough of that._ Time to go.

He seeks out the head teacher in her small office to return his keys. She's a petite woman, but she hugs him tightly enough to drive the breath from his lungs. He coughs, and then laughs. “It's not like I'm going anywhere, Maria.”

“Yeah, but you won't be _here_ every day.” She sighs and shakes her dark-haired head. “You know we're all so happy for you, but we'll miss you!”

“You're not going to flatter me out of quitting,” he grins.

She frowns at that, crossing her arms. “I can't believe you're making us find a new teaching assistant,” she huffs. “I _hate_ doing interviews. Do you know how many assistants and football coaches we went through before you settled down with us?”

“I'll miss you too, love,” he chuckles. “Shame on me for spoiling you. You know in autumn you'll be telling me all about your new assistant and how they're so much better than I ever was.”

Maria rolls her eyes. “All right, all right. So you're off, then? Sure you have all of your things?”

“Yeah, I think so. And if I don't,” Louis shrugs, “I'll just have to come back.”

He's not planning on coming back any time soon, though. Eventually, probably, he hopes. Nervous butterflies tickling his stomach at the thought.

He feels like a new man as he strolls through town. He _whistles_. A few people glare at them, and they can piss right off as far as he's concerned. He's happy and everyone else should be, too. They should all join in and whistle and dance through the streets in a big musical number about new beginnings and things like that.

Real life is so disappointing sometimes.

That musical number has promise, though. He pulls out his phone and taps out some lyrics, whistling a little melody.  Maybe he could write a little play for the students to perform.  Maybe he could be the next Sondheim or Miranda and it all starts right here. Okay, probably not, but hey, dreams are free.

He spends his afternoon cleaning the house to prepare for Lola coming back home. Standards at his house slipped a bit the first few months that she was gone, but he makes a bit more of an effort now that Harry is over so often, so it's not a _complete_ disaster. The place is a bit old and shabby, also, so there's something of an upper limit in how clean and sharp it can ever look.

As he putters around, tidying and scrubbing, he looks at his home with newly critical eyes. There are a lot of things that should be fixed up, and maybe could be in a few years if the theatre produces as much revenue as they'd projected. Those uneven floorboards and loose baseboards, always a bit of a tripping hazard and more so to small children, ought to be fairly easy to fix. He could repaint. He could even get rid of that hideous wallpaper in the bathroom. Update those ugly old taps. Fix the crooked cabinet doors.

He images this house, all clean and new and beautiful. He sees it in his mind, a sweet little home for a handful of sweet little children.

A different home. Everything it was, when he was a young single father and Lola was a little girl, wiped away.

Something wraps around his heart and _squeezes_. He stumbles back against the wall of the kitchen and slides slowly down it until his bottom hits the floor, the ugly, cracked, yellowed linoleum that he's always hated, where Lola used to drive toy cars and have tea parties with her dolls.

_I'm just like my mother_ , he thinks, and his heart hurts. He feels sick and it hurts because he _wants_. He wants that modest but nicely fixed-up house, warm and safe and comfortable for the children, and a partner there, a husband. But he can't see how that's different from what his mother had done, really, and God, that's awful.

He feels trapped, trapped in a situation and trapped in his thoughts. It takes the soft click of keys and the front door opening to jolt him out of it.

“Shit,” he mutters, scrambling to his feet. He looks around frantically and tries to remember just what he was doing. Dishes, there are dishes on the counter. When Harry walks in to the kitchen, Louis is casually loading the dishwasher. Harry greets him with a kiss and starts pulling food out of some shopping bags. “Thanks for cleaning the kitchen, babe,” Harry says, brushing a hand across Louis' back as he passes.

“It's all part of my master plan to have you cook for me,” Louis answers brightly. _Nailed it_ , he thinks. _Excellent imitation of a not-crazy person._ He turns and leans back against the counter to watch Harry.

“Your master plan to get me to do the thing I already said I would do,” Harry observes with a little smile. “You can keep cleaning if you need to,” he adds. “Just turn on the radio for me?”

Louis gratefully takes the opportunity. He hates cleaning, but he could probably use a little space. He feels all off-balance.

He pulls out a load of washing and hangs it up, and tries to reason with himself. Lola loves him. Lola loves Harry. Lola wants them to be happy. These are actual facts. Right.

He loves his mother, though, and yet he was angry at her for twenty-odd years for remarrying and starting a new family. That's also a fact.

He sighs and goes back inside, and finds himself leaning against the doorway into the kitchen, surreptitiously watching Harry. It's hard to heed the call of chores when there's Harry right there in front of him. He's feeling weird about their relationship at the moment, but... well, he's not sure that a level of weird has yet been invented that could entirely stop him from enjoying this moment.

Harry's flitting between a sauté pan, which sizzles and emits enticing smells, and a cutting board on the nearby counter where's doing some mysterious chopping and dicing. His curls spill down the back of his neck, Louis notices happily. Harry often ties his hair back into a neat little bun, especially when he's cooking, but Louis loves seeing his hair loose. Harry's shaking his bum and humming along to the song on the radio, and he's just so gorgeous and adorable. Louis can't help but smile, and standing here and watching Harry might be a little creepy, but fuck it.

He's amazingly absorbed in his cooking, actually, and when he's not stirring or chopping, he's on his phone, so he takes ages to notice. Louis watches him scrape one pile of stuff out of the pan (chicken?) and toss another pile in (onions and garlic, by the smell). That pan has been cooking for several minutes by the time Harry turns, frown on his face like he's looking for something. When he spots Louis, he startles with surprising violence, stumbling a step to the side. His lips quickly part in a smile, though, dimple popping.

“Sorry!” Louis holds his hands up. “I didn't mean to scare you.”

“How long have you been lurking over there?” Harry grins.

Louis steps into the kitchen. “Not long,” he lies, sauntering over and placing his hand on Harry's hips. He leans in slowly, pressing up against Harry's long, slender body.

“Don't distract me, I'll burn dinner,” Harry laughs, but then he leans in and kisses Louis. It's brief, though. He does give Louis' bum a quick, cheeky squeeze, but then he puts a hand on Louis' shoulder and pushes gently. “Seriously.”

Louis takes a step back with a heavy sigh. “I can't believe you're making me choose between you and food.”

Harry laughs and shakes his head at he prods at the contents of the pan. “You can have both, you just have to _wait_.”

“Oh my god, he says this like he thinks I'm good at waiting or something,” Louis complains to the ceiling.

Harry's cooking is fantastic as always, and Louis tells him so. Harry seems happy at that, but at some point, the dinner becomes weird, a little stilted and awkward, and Louis isn't sure why. He doesn't even think it's his fault. He had mentioned something about going to pick up Lola tomorrow, and not long after that he noticed Harry seeming a bit quiet and stiff, and it's very confusing. He doesn't _think_ he said something wrong. Or – is some of his inner turmoil from earlier showing?

Louis gropes for some levity, tells a cute story about Ernie at the zoo a couple weeks ago. Even that falls flat. Harry's staring at his plate, twirling spaghetti slowly around his fork. Louis is staring at him, feeling helpless. He blows out a slow breath into the silence, and asks, “Is something wrong?”

“What?” Harry jerks his head up. “What—no. Of course not.”

“I don't think there's an 'of course' to it,” Louis says.

Harry shrugs. “It's all fine.”

“Fine,” Louis answers slowly. “Okay.”

It doesn't feel fine. They don't even have sex that night, and, okay, that's fine – they're not teenagers anymore and they don't necessarily even want to have sex every day. They've had plenty of sleepovers without sex. It's just that none of those felt as tense before they got into bed.

And now it feels extra awkward to keep pressing. But it's like an itch that Louis can't help scratching. He's already mentally kicking himself while he's lying in bed, pressed up against Harry, armed wrapped around his boyfriend. It's stupid, but he really wants to know. He tries to keep his voice light, casual and tinged with drowsiness, as he ventures, “Are you sure there's nothing wrong?”

Harry's silent for a long, long moment, long enough that Louis begins to think that he won't answer at all. Harry traces his fingers up and down Louis' arm, though. Louis waits.

“It's just...” Harry begins, so quietly that Louis strains to hear him. “You didn't invite me to the zoo when you took your brother and sister, and you didn't invite me to come pick up Lola, and... do you not want me there? When you do things with your family?”

Harry's voice is so tiny, so full of hurt. It's like an arrow in the heart. Louis is so shocked that he half-sits up, trying to see Harry's face in the darkness of his room. “I—what? No! No, that's... it's just a long drive to Lola's, and we're just going to load her stuff and come back. I thought it would be boring. And you hate the zoo, that's why I didn't ask.”

Harry turns his head to frown up at Louis. “I don't hate the zoo. When did I say that?”

Louis sputters indignantly. “You had, like, a thirty-minute rant about how awful Sea World is. I don't know why, I mean, have you even been to California, I don't think so, but you hate it!”

Harry rolls over. “Yeah, Sea World, that's not the same as the zoo.”

“It's just a zoo with fish, what's different about it? Wouldn't you have the same ethical objections to the zoo?”

“Well...” Harry frowns. “But I would've gone, though.”

“Oh.” Well, that's a lame response, but Louis is at a loss for words. “Erm. I'm sorry? I thought you wouldn't want to go. Or you might be offended that I asked. Sorry. I am, erm, I'm sorry.”

Harry shrugs, looking down at the sheet between them. “I don't know that I'd love the zoo, but. I thought this was serious, you and me—”

“Oh my god, of course it's serious, Harry, no,” Louis protests immediately. He'll flagellate himself later for how instinctively that came out, because a corner of his brain is still terrified that he's betraying Lola here somehow, but he's going with his heart here.

“Do you just think it's... too soon, for me to spend time with your family with you, then?”

“No!” Louis exclaims. “I just _really_ thought you'd hate the zoo. We'll go to the zoo again! Any time you want, I'll grab as many siblings as I can and we'll totally go to the zoo, I swear.”

Harry gently strokes Louis' face, feels the deep frown there, and he actually giggles a little.

“Hey, Harry, want to drive four bloody boring hours and load Lola's shit into the car tomorrow and then drive four boring hours back here?”

“I'm busy,” Harry says instantly.

Louis groans. “ _Hazza_ , you're killing me here.”

Harry giggles again. “Yeah, I can come.”

“Okay then. We're taking your car then, it's bigger.” He kisses Harry on his nose. “Absurd man. Can we sleep now? Are we okay?”

“As long as you really take me to the zoo,” Harry mumbles, wiggling in to snuggle himself up against Louis.

“Nah, you'll plan something ethical and eco-friendly for us to do and we all know it.”

“Oh!” Harry exclaims happily. “Can I? I will, it'll be brilliant.”

“Yes, love. Go to sleep now.” Louis kisses him on the top of his head.

* * *

The truth is that he'd been very much hoping to have a long conversation with Lola about all the worries weighing on him, and yet, last night he'd written off that conversation in order to make Harry feel better.

So he kind of feels like shit.

He calls Lola to check whether she minds Harry coming, hoping that she'll say she'd rather he didn't, but if anything, she sounds excited about the prospect. “We'll have plenty of time just the two of us, I mean, I am going to be home all summer. It'll be fun to have Harry there! We always have the best car sing-alongs.”

Well, she can be carefree and happy because she doesn't know yet that she's about to be _stabbed in the back_ by her _own father._ Well, not about to, exactly. It's a ways off. But _still_.

He can't even be mad at Harry. He'd had to go in to early and do his baking, but he returned looking bright-eyed and cute with his hair in a bun. He woke Louis up with breakfast in bed. Breakfast in bed!

“It's just pastries and coffee from the bakery,” Harry had demurred, but he'd blushed so sweetly under Louis' praise.

He's maybe a little bit manic and obnoxious once he's woken up enough, but Harry only pulls over and threatens to dump him out along the highway once.

“We're going to pick up _my_ child, Harold!” Louis squawks as Harry shoves at his shoulder. “And you insisted on coming!”

“Well, I didn't know that you were going to change the radio every two bloody seconds and then pour coffee on me when I told you to stop it!”

“I'm in charge of the radio – no, get off me buckle, let go – that's just safety, driver can't be messing with the radio.”

“Safety is no excuse for torturing the driver and from now on you can only touch the radio when I saw so or else.”

“Oooh, getting bossy now, Styles.” Louis smirks. “Save it for the bedroom, babe.”

Harry rolls his eyes upward. “What did I do to deserve this?”

“Stop it with the buckle—!”

“Say you won't touch the radio or I'm not starting this car again.”

Louis rolls his eyes and sighs as loudly as he physically can. “ _Fine_.”

“Okay.” Harry frowns at him, but starts with the car with what appears to be great reluctance.

Harry makes him sit in the back seat on the trip home. “Lola will be nice to me.”

“I'm going to kick your seat the whole way back.”

“Nope,” Harry says calmly. “Look at all the boxes behind my seat. You've got to sit on the other side. No, _don't_ start moving them.”

“Dad, come on, sit behind me,” Lola cajoles him. “Let poor Harry live. Let's not waste time moving that, let's get home! I want to see everyone!”

“Why did I give birth to such a sensible fun-ruining child?”

“You didn't, now sit down so we can go,” Lola laughs.

Lola and Harry chatter like best friends when they're not singing along to the radio. For once, Louis is content to just watch and listen. It's calming like nothing else, watching Harry beam when Lola tells him about her accomplishments, listening to Lola laugh at Harry's stories and wheedle the latest town gossip out of him. Lola and Harry are friends in a way that Louis and his stepfather Mark never were. Mark had tried – Louis can see that now – but he was always, first and foremost, Louis' mum's partner. He'd always been an interloper in Louis' eyes. The situation just isn't the same with Harry and Lola.

Maybe he's actually lucky that he was too tired or too distracted or just too stupid to fall for Harry when they first met.

* * *

It takes him nearly a week to talk it out with Lola. He'd like to think it's just because they're busy. Lola spends half her time applying for summer jobs and the other half reconnecting with the people of Gilmore's. For Louis, there's still plenty of work to do at the theatre as the renovations continue.

Friday night, though, is going to be a good old-fashioned Louis-and-Lola night in, they decide. “The lads can support the pub without us. We need some high-quality lazy time,” Louis declares.

They've long alternated duties; this time around, Lola's in charge of films, and Louis is in charge of snacks. They start promptly at 5, and they get through two-and-a-third movies before they hit a scene where someone has a baby.

Louis feels like his entire mouth is coated in sugar and his belly is gloriously full. He just wants to laze and luxuriate, but, _no_. He needs to be strong.

He grabs the remote and pauses the movie. “Hey, Lo, can I talk to you about something?”

She turns toward him. “Oh—yeah, what's up?”

“You know, almost anyone else would smack me and tell me to shut up and watch the film, but you just pause and ask me what's up,” Louis muses.

“Well, movie night tradition,” Lola points out. “Films should be interruptable, whether it's for heckling or getting more snacks or other reasons.”

“We come up with the best rules. We're geniuses.”

“Spit it out, Dad.”

“Ugh. Okay.” Louis slouches down lower on the sofa. He pulls his blanket around him more tightly, more for comfort than for cutting the evening chill. “So. So I've talked to you about the situation with my parents, and how I was mad at my mum for so long, and why.”

Lola pulls her legs up under her and turns her body to face his. “Uh-huh...”

“It was really weird for me when she re-married, and when she had more kids, it felt like I was being replaced.”

“Yeah, you told me that,” Lola says slowly.

“And, I never wanted you to feel that way. You know, there's a lot of reasons why I stayed away from dating when you were little – I also, you know, didn't want you to get hurt by people coming and going from your life, but I definitely didn't ever want to make you feel like I did...”

“Uh, sure... You never did.” Lola frowns. “Are you, like, worried that I'm upset about you and Harry dating?”

“Oh, erm, well...”

“Oh. Because I'm really, really not. Like, that's... why would you worry about that? I love you, and I like Harry, he's been our friend for ages. I want you to be happy and you two seem really happy together. I think it's cool.”

“Okay, well. That's, yeah, that's good to hear. I did kind of figure you wouldn't be too upset with us dating, but, yeah.”

Lola cocks her head to the side. “Okay? Then what are you worried about?”

Louis sighs and plucks at the blanket pooled around him. “I just, er, realized recently that the thing with me and Harry is pretty serious...”

“You _just_ realized?” Lola raises her eyebrows skeptically.

“I mean, like... like, I could see us. You know. Wanting to get married. Have more kids. That whole... thing. And I realized...” Louis sighs again and looks down. “I don't ever want to make you feel like I felt when _I_ was a kid and my mum did that. So. I don't...”

Because he's looking down, he doesn't see it coming. The pillow smacks him square on top of his head and bounces off. He squawks and looks up frantically at Lola.

“Stop being an idiot!” Lola laughs. “What are you even saying? You're so weird. This isn't the same as that at _all_.”

Louis rubs at the top of his head and vaguely attempts to pat his ruffled hair back down. “Isn't it, though?”

“No!” Lola shakes her head vehemently. “One, I'm an adult and I'm starting my own life soon anyway, I mean, not that I won't always be your kid and all that, but I'm going to move out and do my own thing. I mean, hopefully. That's the plan. So I'm not a kid at home who suddenly won't get any attention and will freak out. B—”

“You started with one and then you went to B,” Louis points out helpfully.

“Shut up. B, I just don't believe that you and Harry would let me feel ignored like that. C, why would you think I would prefer for you to be lonely, oh my gosh, insulting, Dad. Of course I want you to do what will make you happy. D...” She frowns. “I've lost track. Erm...” She murmurs to herself, tapping on her fingers. “Oh! Yeah, oh gosh, that would be so sweet if you and Harry ended up married and stuff. I feel like he's already family anyway, you know? And I could have brothers and sisters!” She grins suddenly. “I'd be kind of like a big sister and kind of like a cool aunt! It'd be brilliant, wouldn't it?”

Louis bites his lip, but he can't stop himself from grinning. “You'd be the _best_ big sister-aunt-combo.” He chuckles softly, imagining it, imagining how amazing it would be. “But... seriously? This doesn't weird you out?”

Lola rolls her eyes. “I _am_ a little bit clever, you know. I kind of saw this coming.”

“What do you mean?”

“Uh, you and Harry are completely mad for each other and you both love babies,” Lola says.

“You say that like it's sooooo obvious.”

“Because it is,” Lola says slowly, and a wee bit smugly.

“Hmmph.” Louis can't actually argue with that, but it rankles a bit to have been seen through so thoroughly.

After a few beats of silence, Lola asks, “So are you going to take his name?”

“Huh what now?”

“You've gone all red.” Lola grins. “You've totally thought about it. You've been writing Mr. Louis Styles all over your notebooks.”

“No!” It was only the one piece of paper, which he had meticulously shredded before throwing it away. “I don't know. I never did very much like having my father's name. I'm not going to just change it arbitrarily, but... I don't know.”

“Styles is a really cool name. It wouldn't bother me, if you're wondering.”

“No? Really?”

Lola shrugs. “I've never been attached to our last name either. I mean, all the extended family we're in touch with have a different name. I might consider changing mine someday. Only if the other name is cool, though. Like, if he were Harry Smith, it'd be one thing, but Styles? I mean, what an opportunity.”

Louis giggles. “I know, right?”

She smiles at him. Her eyes crinkle around the corners a little, just like his. “So, was that it?”

“I suppose?” Louis laughs. “I thought this was going to be a much longer and more difficult conversation, but, I guess not.”

“Just don't remodel my room into a nursery without talking to me first, and we're cool,” Lola assures him.

“I think we're still a ways off from that, love. But, thanks.” His eyes are doing that stupid crinkly thing too; he can feel it. Apparently he's very, very happy.

* * *

They stay up until almost three in the morning. Lola falls asleep in the middle of the fifth movie. Louis covers her carefully with a blanket, and then he sneaks out.

He wasn't planning to – he planned to just sleep in his own home and have a nice lazy lie-in, as their shop doesn't open very early on the weekends. When he stands up, though, his feet feel leaden with exhaustion, but his heart is singing that Harry is his, and he's Harry's, and their future is theirs for the taking, and it's going to be _great_ , and he just can't possibly wait until tomorrow night to wrap his arms around his lover, not when he's feeling all of these crazy lovely feelings and Harry's less than a mile away.

He's already in his pyjamas and he doesn't bother to change. He slips on some shoes, throws a blanket around his shoulders, and pads quickly through the silent town to Harry's. He has a key now, so he can let himself in and sneak up quietly to the room where Harry is fast asleep. He pauses to warm his hands, tucking them in between his thighs until they're warm enough that he won't wake Harry when he touches him. Then he slides in under the duvet, snuggles himself up to Harry's back, and promptly drops into sleep.

It's more of a nap, as Harry's alarm goes off barely half an hour later. Louis stirs as Harry turns in the circle of his arms and noses at his jaw. “When'd you get here?” he mumbles.

“Dunno, little while ago,” Louis murmurs back. “Lola fell asleep 'n I came over.”

“You're strange. Why?” Harry kisses his chin.

Louis smiles slowly. “Just being sappy.”

“I love sappy. Tell me more.”

Louis sighs happily as Harry props himself up on an elbow and dusts soft kisses over Louis' face. “Just didn't want to wait any longer than I had to to, erm, get to hold you, and tell you how much I love you.”

“Yeah?”

Louis manages to crack an eye open. It's worth the effort to see the megawatt Harry-smile that he's getting. “It's a lot, by the way, Curly. I'm very, very fond of you.”

Harry beams, and lowers his lips to Louis'. It's slow and lingering, the perfect good-morning kiss. It's the perfect time for Louis to thread his fingers through Harry's hair and lick into his mouth, coaxing the kiss into something deeper and hotter. He rolls over onto his back, pulling Harry on top of him. He starts to feel Harry harden against his thigh. With a grin, he seizes his moment and—pushes up on Harry's chest, gently but insistently, until Harry pulls back and breaks the kiss.

“What?” Harry frowns.

“I forgot. My mum wants to have you over for dinner sometime.”

Harry looks at him incredulously. “Why are we talking about your mum now?” he whines.

Louis grins. “If you want the full Louis'-family experience, babe – and you kinda said that you did – it's coming for you.”

Harry groans. “Can something else be coming? Quickly? I have to go bake, like, now.”

“So demanding,” Louis sighs, but he obediently slides a hand down Harry's gorgeous body. Harry's breath hitches as Louis gets his hands on him, and Louis grins. “Love you _so_ much, Haz, you know that, right?”

“Yeah,” Harry sighs into Louis' mouth. “I love you too, Lou. You and me...”

“Yeah,” Louis whispers. He feels like his heart is about to burst with happiness. “'s kind of brilliant, innit? Don't know how I got so lucky.”

Harry chuckles breathlessly. “Me neither, but yeah, feeling's mutual. Now hush and make love to me, Lou.”

It's very possible that they wake a neighbour or two, and it's definitely possible that he messes up someone's breakfast plans by making the baker _very_ late to his morning kitchen duties, but sod all of that. Louis is fairly sure that he and Harry are the happiest men in the world this morning, and here in their bed, in the darkness before the sun comes up, nothing else matters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title based on Gilmore Girls episode of the same name. (There's usually no correlation with the actual episode contents; I just found the title suitable.)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feel free to come say [on tumblr.](http://fakedeepplantjerker.tumblr.com/)


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